Eli Whitney

“To make the same parts of different guns, as the locks, for example, as much like each other as the successive impressions of a copper-plate engraving.”

“One of my primary objects is to form the tools so the tools themselves shall fashion the work and give to every part its just proportion.”

“My mind is constantly running on mechanics.”

“I am persuaded that I can make a machine that will do the work of fifty men with the same ease that I can now do the work of ten.”

“Invention is a lottery; the prizes are few and the blanks many.”