These questions of taste, of feeling, of inheritance, need no settlement. Everyone carries his own inch-rule of taste, and amuses himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels.
In Paris and London he had seen nothing to make a return to life worth while; in Washington he saw plenty of reasons for staying dead.
General Grant seriously remarked to a particularly bright young woman that Venice would be a fine city if it were drained.
The world can absorb only doses of truth,” he said; “too much would kill it.” One sought education in order to adjust the dose.
Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals nor forts.
Washington was no politician as we understand the word,” replied Ratcliffe abruptly. “He stood outside of politics. The thing couldn’t be done today. The people don’t like that sort of royal airs.
All experience is an arch, to build upon.
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.
There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.
A congressman is a pig. The only way to get his snout from the trough is to rap it sharply with a stick.
One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible.
The capacity of women to make unsuitable marriages must be considered as the cornerstone of society.
Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.
No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself.
Everyone carries his own inch rule of taste, and amuses himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels.
History will die if not irritated. The only service I can do to my profession is to serve as a flea.
Unity is vision; it must have been part of the process of learning to see.
I think that Lee should have been hanged. It was all the worse that he was a good man and a fine character and acted conscientiously. It’s always the good men who do the most harm in the world.
We combat obstacles in order to get repose, and when got, the repose is insupportable.