Edged tools are dangerous things to handle, and not infrequently do much hurt.

The essence of humor is that it should be unexpected, that it should embody an element of surprise, that it should startle us out of that reasonable gravity which, after all, must be our habitual frame of mind.

By providing cheap and wholesome reading for the young, we have partly succeeded in driving from the field that which was positively bad; yet nothing is easier than to overdo a reformation, and, through the characteristic indulgence of American parents, children are drugged with a literature whose chief merit is its harmlessness.

the labors of the true critic are more essential to the author, even, than to the reader.

The vanity of man revolts from the serene indifference of the cat.

The earliest voice listened to by the nations in their infancy was the voice of the storyteller.

It is bad enough to be bad, but to be bad in bad taste is unpardonable.