I am well aware that I am the 'umblest person going. . . . My mother is likewise a very 'umble person. We live in a 'umble abode.

Missionaries are perfect nuisances and leave every place worse than they found it.

One disagreeable result of whispering is that it seems to evoke an atmosphere of silence, haunted by the ghosts of sound - strange cracks and tickings, the rustling of garments that have no substance in them, and the tread of dreadful feet that would leave no mark on the sea-sand or the winter snow.

There was something very comfortable in having plenty of stationery.

We spent as much money as we could and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.

If a pig could give his mind to anything, he would not be a pig.

You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. Stick to Facts, sir!