In middle life politics are not a mental acquisition; they are a temperament.
Persecution was at least a sign of personal interest.
We always carry out by committee anything in which any one of us alone would be too reasonable to persist.
As crowds increase we build our forts of inattention, and the more we talk the easier it is to mean little and listen not at all.
Averageness is a quality we must put up with. Men march toward civilization in column formation, and by the time the van has learned to admire the masters the rear is drawing reluctantly away from the totem pole.
Literary people are forever judging the quality of the mind by the turn of expression.
Talk ought always to run obliquely, not nose to nose with no chance of mental escape.
You cannot find, make or understand true friendship without having enemies.
I know of no more disagreeable sensation than to be left feeling generally angry without anybody in particular to be angry at.
Men will confess to treason, murder, arson, false teeth, or a wig. How many of them will own up to a lack of humor?
Every man ought to be inquisitive through every hour of his great adventure down to the day when he shall no longer cast a shadow in the sun. For if he dies without a question in his heart, what excuse is there for his continuance?
Sin in this country has been always said to be rather calculating than impulsive.
There ought to be some sign in a book about man, that the writer knows thoroughly one man at least.
Fill an author with a titanic fame and you do not make him titanic; you often merely burst him.
Women singly do a good deal of harm. Women in bulk are chastening.
By rights, satire is a lonely and introspective occupation, for nobody can describe a fool to the life without much patient self-inspection.
As wounded men may limp through life, so our war minds may not regain the balance of their thoughts for decades.
Many people lose their tempers merely from seeing you keep yours.
We do not mind our not arriving anywhere nearly so much as our not having any company on the way.
When temptations march monotonously in regiments, one waits for to pass.