Mark Twain Quote

Every improvement that is put upon the real estate is the result of an idea in somebody's head. The skyscraper is another idea; the railroad is another; the telephone and all those things are merely symbols which represent ideas. An andiron, a wash-tub, is the result of an idea that did not exist before.

Stormfield Edition of the Writings of Mark Twain [pseud.].: Mark Twain's speeches (ed. 1929)