Just as we are often moved to merriment for no other reason than that the occasion calls for seriousness, so we are correspondingly serious when invited too freely to be amused.

No rural community, no suburban community, can ever possess the distinctive qualities that city dwellers have for centuries given to the world.

A puppy is but a dog, plus high spirits, and minus common sense.

Humor, in one form or another, is characteristic of every nation; and reflecting the salient points of social and national life, it illuminates those crowded corners which history leaves obscure.

if a man be discreet enough to take to hard drinking in his youth, before his general emptiness is ascertained, his friends invariably credit him with a host of shining qualities which, we are given to understand, lie balked and frustrated by his one unfortunate weakness.

The delusions of the past seem fond and foolish. The delusions of the present seem subtle and sane.

Neatness of phrase is so closely akin to wit that it is often accepted as its substitute.