Ancestry is most important to those who have done nothing themselves.
What people speak of as adventure is something nobody in his right mind would seek out, and it becomes romantic only when one is safely at home.
Nobody got anywhere in the world by simply being content.
The only thing that never changes is that everything changes.
I have told many, yet when I go down that last trail, I know there will be a thousand stories hammering at my skull, demanding to be told.
If you want the law to leave you alone, keep your hair trimmed and your boots shined.
I wonder why it is the man who pleads for mercy never gives it.
Anger is a killing thing: it kills the man who angers, for each rage leaves him less than he had been before – it takes something from him.
After a few days, I mused, I would have no trouble. Whoever heard of a revolution of fat men?
The way I see it, every time a man gets up in the morning he starts his life over. Sure, the bills are there to pay, and the job is there to do, but you don’t have to stay in a pattern. You can always start over, saddle a fresh horse and take another trail.
Today is all we have, tomorrow is a mirage that may never become reality.
The more one learns, the more he understands his ignorance.
To make democracy work, we must be a notion of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.
Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen.
All loose things seem to drift down to the sea, and so did I.
To disbelieve is easy; to scoff is simple; to have faith is harder.
Knowledge is like money: to be of value it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and, hopefully, in value.
Have faith in God but keep your powder dry.
I would not sit waiting for some vague tomorrow, nor for something to happen. One could wait a lifetime, and find nothing at the end of the waiting. I would begin here, I would make something happen.
Folks who talk about no violence are always the ones who are first to call a policeman and usually they are sure there is one handy.