If he were a man of strong mind, it only gave him fits; but a person of mere average intellect it usually sent mad.
Man, if he would live, must worship. He looks around, and what to him, within the vision of his life, is the greatest and the best, that he falls down and does reverence to.
Some people are under the impression that all that is required to make a good fisherman is the ability to tell lies easily and without blushing; but this is a mistake.
I can see the humorous side of things and enjoy the fun when it comes; but look where I will, there seems to me always more sadness than joy in life.
I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck.
I often arrive at quite sensible ideas and judgements, on the spur of the moment. It is when I stop to think that I become foolish.
We like, we cherish, we are very, very fond of – but we never love again.
What the eye does not see, the stomach does not get upset over.
We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can’t do without.
I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.
People who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach does the business quite as well, and is cheaper, and more easily obtained.
Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.
One we discover how to appreciate the timeless values in our daily experiences, we can enjoy the best things in life.
It is easy enough to say that poverty is no crime. No; if it were men wouldn’t be ashamed of it. It is a blunder, though, and is punished as such. A poor man is despised the whole world over.
I attribute the quarrelsome nature of the Middle Ages young men entirely to the want of the soothing weed.
I can’t sit still and see another man slaving and working. I want to get up and superintend, and walk round with my hands in my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my energetic nature. I can’t help it.
It takes 3 girls to tow always; two to hold the rope, and the other one runs round and round, and giggles.
It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch one another and find sympathy. We differ widely enough in our nobler qualities. It is in our follies that we are at one.
If you are foolish enough to be contented, don’t show it, but grumble with the rest; and if you can do with a little, ask for a great deal. Because if you don’t you won’t get any.
Swearing relieves the feelings – that is what swearing does. I explained this to my aunt on one occasion, but it didn’t answer with her. She said I had no business to have such feelings.