Famous quotes containing the words percussion and/or independent:
“We got our new rifled muskets this morning. They are mostly old muskets, many of them used, altered from flint-lock to percussion ... but the power of the gun was fully as great as represented. The ball at one-fourth mile passed through the largest rails; at one-half mile almost the same.... I think it an excellent arm.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“I have defeated them all.... I was left with some money to battle with the world when quite young, and at the present time have much to feel proud of.... The Lord gave me talent, and I know I have done good with it.... For my brains have made me quite independent and without the help of any man.”
—Harriet A. Brown, U.S. inventor and educator. As quoted in Feminine Ingenuity, ch. 8, by Anne L. MacDonald (1992)