“My humor was never cruel or cynical. I just took life and poked fun at it. We made it so it could be understood the world over, without language barriers. We seem to have conquered the time barrier, too.”

The Century magazine (1892)

Strategic objectives of new Government (May 23, 2007)

As quoted in Tooele Transcript-Bulletin https://archive.ph/rZrYW (October 12, 1995)
State in regards to the World Conference on Women, 1995

Address at a Citizenship Ceremony, Winnipeg Manitoba, May 20, 1955
Speaking Of Canada - (1959)

Source: The Story of My Life (1903), Ch. 4
Context: We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Some one was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten — a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away.
I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me.

Source: The Mark of Athena

Variant: ... and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.
Source: Fight Club

Introduction<!-- pp. 3-4 -->
The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry Into Its Origin and Growth (1921)
Context: Science has been advancing without interruption during the last three of four hundred years; every new discovery has led to new problems and new methods of solution, and opened up new fields for exploration. Hitherto men of science have not been compelled to halt, they have always found ways to advance further. But what assurance have we that they will not come up against impassable barriers?... Take biology or astronomy. How can we be sure that some day progress may not come to a dead pause, not because knowledge is exhausted, but because our resources for investigation are exhausted... It is an assumption, which cannot be verified, that we shall not reach a point in our knowledge of nature beyond which the human intellect is unqualified to pass.

During his 2015 Mexico Cruade - "TB Joshua Gathers 200,000 In Mexico" http://www.nigerianeye.com/2015/05/tb-joshua-gathers-200000-in-mexico.html Nigerian Eye (May 14 2015)