Birth
Maxim was born in Sangerville, Maine in the United States in 1840. He became an apprentice coachbuilder at the age of 14 and ten years later took up a job at the machine works of his uncle, Levi Stephens, at Fitchburg, Massachusetts. He subsequently worked as an instrument maker and as a draughtsman. (His early jobs in these arenas led him to often be disappointed with workers when he ran his own companies later on in life.)
Read more about this topic: Hiram Stevens Maxim
Famous quotes containing the word birth:
“The birth of the new constitutes a crisis, and its mastery calls for a crude and simple cast of mind—the mind of a fighter—in which the virtues of tribal cohesion and fierceness and infantile credulity and malleability are paramount. Thus every new beginning recapitulates in some degree man’s first beginning.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“I am fifty-two years of age. I am a bishop in the Anglican Church, and a few people might be constrained to say that I was reasonably responsible. In the land of my birth I cannot vote, whereas a young person of eighteen can vote. And why? Because he or she possesses that wonderful biological attribute—a white skin.”
—Desmond Tutu (b. 1931)
“Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long,
And then they say no spirit dare stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed, and so gracious, is that time.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)