Early Life
Ferguson was born in Glasgow, Scotland on 18 April 1964. His father was a doctor and his mother a physics teacher. He attended The Glasgow Academy. He was brought up as and remains an atheist.
Ferguson cites his father as instilling in him a strong sense of self-discipline and of the moral value of work, while his mother encouraged his creative side. His journalist maternal grandfather encouraged him to write. Unable to decide on studying an English or a History degree at university, Ferguson cites his reading of War and Peace as persuading him towards History.
Read more about this topic: Niall Ferguson
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“The conviction that the best way to prepare children for a harsh, rapidly changing world is to introduce formal instruction at an early age is wrong. There is simply no evidence to support it, and considerable evidence against it. Starting children early academically has not worked in the past and is not working now.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“Why should not our whole life and its scenery be actually thus fair and distinct? All our lives want a suitable background. They should at least, like the life of the anchorite, be as impressive to behold as objects in a desert, a broken shaft or crumbling mound against a limitless horizon.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)