To hold a pen is to be at war.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.
He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.
The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: “O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.” And God granted it.
The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.
Quarrel? Nonsense; we have not quarreled. If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?
I’m only a beer teetotaler, not a champagne teetotaler.
I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.
In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it.
The only gift is a portion of thyself.
A sudden bold and unexpected question does many times surprise a man and lay him open.
Courage consists in equality to the problem before us.
A short letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation — a proof of unwillingness to do much, even where there is a necessity of doing something.
When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.
Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant.
Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.
A home without a cat-and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat-may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?
This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.
My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.
An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.
