I am not given to exaggeration, and when I say a thing I mean it.
There are things which some people never attempt during their whole lives, but one of these is not poetry. Poetry attacks all human beings sooner or later, and, like the measles, is mild or violent according to the age of the sufferer.
Sufficient unto the day is one baby. As long as you are in your right mind don’t you ever pray for twins. Twins amount to a permanent riot; and there ain’t any real difference between triplets and a insurrection. – The Babies speech 1879.
Learning softeneth the heart and breedeth gentleness and charity.
Wilson stopped and stood silent. Inattention dies a quick and sure death when a speaker does that.
There is nothing in the world like persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus.
A sincere compliment is always grateful to a lady, so long as you don’t try to knock her down with it.
I said nothing of the sort.
One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed it. They also believed the world was flat.
The fact is, the king was a good deal more than a king, he was a man; and when a man is a man, you can’t knock it out of him.
Words are only painted fire, a look is the fire itself. She gave that look, and carried it away to the treasury of heaven, where all things that are divine belong.
Never be haughty to the humble, never be humble to the haughty.
I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the things which were sacred to other people.
I was born lazy. I am no lazier now than I was forty years ago, but that is because I reached the limit forty years ago. You can’t go beyond possibility.
A discriminating irreverence is the creator and protector of human liberty.
She remained both girl and woman to the last day of her life. Under a grave and gentle exterior burned inextinguishable fires of sympathy, energy, devotion, enthusiasm, and absolutely limitless affection.
The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
I do not like work even when someone else is doing it.
Man – a figment of God’s imagination.
If books are not good company, where shall I find it?