Thomas Newcomen Quotes

I had entered the Green [of Glasgow] by the gate at the foot of Charlotte Street - had passed the old washing-house. I was thinking upon the engine at the time, and had gone as far as the herd's house, when the idea came into my mind that as steam was an elastic body it would rush into a vacuum, and if a communication were made between the cylinder and an exhausted vessel it would rush into it, and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder. I then saw that I must get rid of the condensed steam and injection water if I used a jet, as in Newcomen's engine. Two ways of doing this occurred to me. First, the water might be run off by a descending pipe, if an outlet could be got at the depth of 35 or 36 feet, and any air might be extracted by a small pump. The second was to make the pump large enough to extract both water and air. ... I had not walked further than the Golf-house when the whole thing was arranged in my mind.

{In Robert Hart's words, a recollection of the description of Watt's moment of inspiration, in May 1765, for improving Thomas Newcomen's steam engine.} ~ James Watt

My construction of the constitution is very different from that you quote. It is that each department is truly independent of the others, and has an equal right to decide for itself what is the meaning of the constitution in the cases submitted to its action; and especially, where it is to act ultimately and without appeal. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Religion is the mortar that binds society together; the granite pedestal of liberty; the strong backbone of the social system. ~ Thomas Guthrie

We all come in different shapes and sizes, and that's fine by me. ~ Kristin Scott Thomas

Life would be unbearably dull if we had answers to all our questions. ~ Jim Butcher

The first and fundamental law of Nature, which is, to seek peace and follow it. ~ Thomas Hobbes

Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program. ~ Ronald Reagan

The dollar has lost over 95 percent of its value since the Fed was created. ~ Thomas E. Woods Jr.

A man stumbles into a deep well and plummets a hundred feet before grasping a spindly root, stopping his fall. His grip grows weaker and weaker, and in his desperation he cries out, "Is there anybody up there?" He looks up, and all he can see is a circle of sky. Suddenly, the clouds part and a beam of bright light shines down on him. A deep voice thunders, "I, the Lord, am here. Let go of the root, and I will save you." The man thinks for a moment and then yells, "Is there anybody else up there? ~ Thomas Cathcart

In their brief time together Slothrop forms the impression that this octopus is not in good mental health, though where's his basis for comparing? ~ Thomas Pynchon

A great and wonderful inheritance has come to us from long ago. Since then far greater blessings have been showered upon us – homes, cities, bridges, railways, highways, and other recent developments of our day. These are placed as trusts with us, greatly increasing our responsibilities. ~ Thomas Lawrence Riggs

An upright man is always worth beholding - but then he is most to be admired when like a bright star, he shines in the dark, and having lost all, he holds fast his integrity. ~ Thomas Watson

What's your name?"
"Becky Thatcher. What's yours? Oh, I know. It's Thomas Sawyer."
"That's the name they lick me by. I'm Tom when I'm good. You call me Tom, will you?"
"Yes ~ Mark Twain

Time, whose tooth gnaws away everything else, is powerless against truth. ~ Thomas Huxley

As I drifted along with my bodiless invisibility, I felt myself more and more becoming an empty, floating shape, seeing without being seen and walking without the interference of those grosser creatures who shared my world. It was not an experience completely without interest or even pleasure. The clown's shibboleth of "here we are again" took on a new meaning for me as I felt myself a novitiate of a more rarified order of harlequinry. ("The Last Feast Of The Harlequin") ~ Thomas Ligotti

The rum fiend would like to go and hang up a skeleton in your beautiful house so that, when you opened the front door to go in, you would see it in the hall; and, when you sat at your table you would see it hanging from the wall; and, when you opened your bedroom you would find it stretched upon your pillow; and, waking at night, you would feel its cold hand passing over your face and pinching at your heart. There is no home so beautiful but it may be devastated by the awful curse. ~ Thomas De Witt Talmage

Horror operates with complete autonomy. Generating ontological havoc, it is mephitic foam upon which our lives merely float. And ultimately, we must face up to it: Horror is more real than we are. ~ Thomas Ligotti

Government's power to bully people who have broken no law is dangerous to all of us. ~ Thomas Sowell

We looked out on Life, with its strange scaffolding, ~ Thomas Carlyle

If the individual is to be happy in the contemporary order, he must be open-minded with respect to new values and new arrangements. ~ Thomas Cochrane

But though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for divinities, it is scorned by the average human nature; and it therefore does not mend the matter. ~ Thomas Hardy

Carry the cross patiently, and with perfect submission; and in the end it shall carry you. ~ Thomas A Kempis

We did not make ourselves, nor did we fashion a world that could not work without pain, and great pain at that, with a little pleasure, very little, to string us along--a world where all organisms are inexorably pushed by pain throughout their lives to do that which will improve their chances to survive and create more of themselves. Left unchecked, this process will last as long as a single cell remains palpitating in this cesspool of the solar system, this toilet of the galaxy. So why not lend a hand in nature's suicide? For want of a deity that could be held to account for a world in which there is terrible pain, let nature take the blame for our troubles. We did not create an environment uncongenial to our species, nature did. One would think that nature was trying to kill us off, or get us to suicide ourselves once the blunder of consciousness came upon us. What was nature thinking? We tried to anthropomorphize it, to romanticize it, to let it into our hearts. But nature kept its distance, leaving us to our own devices. So be it. Survival is a two-way street. Once we settle ourselves off-world, we can blow up this planet from outer space. It's the only way to be sure its stench will not follow us. Let it save itself if it can--the condemned are known for the acrobatics they will execute to wriggle out of their sentences. But if it cannot destroy what it has made, and what could possibly unmake it, then may it perish along with every other living thing it has introduced t ~ Thomas Ligotti

It is rare that the public sentiment decides immorally or unwisely, and the individual who differs from it ought to distrust and examine well his own opinion. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Man be my metaphor', ~ Dylan Thomas

Social psychologist argued that even severe mental illness was the result of society labeling unusual behavior rather than of biochemical processes. ~ Thomas J. Scheff

Shape your coat according to your cloth. ~ Thomas Nashe

What matters is whether we want to lie or to tell the truth and write the truth, even though it never can be the truth and never is the truth. ~ Thomas Bernhard

Every living creature commences its existence under a form different from, and simpler than, that which it eventually attains. ~ Thomas Huxley

The social sciences collectively know too little to waste time on foolish disciplinary squabbles. ~ Thomas Piketty

I deplore with you the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed, and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them ... This has in a great degree been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them. ~ Thomas Sowell

I had - along with my singing and dancing, I was very happy to be born in the hometown of Dylan Thomas. So the government was financing dramatic groups and amateur dramatics and stuff like that. ~ Catherine Zeta-Jones

With her words, the world could spin again. It took great restraint to not unfurl my wings and fly Abby around the mountain, pronouncing to anyone with ears that she loved me. Abigail Miller loved me. ~ Ashlan Thomas

You move into the darkness, wrapping it around you like a heavy cloak. You dive into it naked like a midnight swim, slip beneath its covers and invite it to envelope you, as a dream. You lose yourself in the richness of its mysteries. You start to become the darkness. It starts to become you. ~ Thomas Lloyd Qualls

Usually, a band 20 years into its existence doesn't put out its best records. ~ Thomas Bangalter