Niall Ferguson - Early Life

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:

    ... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.
    Hortense Odlum (1892–?)

    We early arrive at the great discovery that there is one mind common to all individual men: that what is individual is less than what is universal ... that error, vice and disease have their seat in the superficial or individual nature.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Like ultraviolet rays memory shows to each man in the book of life a script that invisibly and prophetically glosses the text.
    Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)