I waited and worked, and watched the inferior exalted for nearly thirty years; and when recognition came at last, it was too late to alter events, or to make a difference in living.

There is no state of satisfaction, because to himself no man is a success.

True goodness is an inward grace, not an outward necessity.

The hardest thing to believe when you're young is that people will fight to stay in a rut, but not to get out of one.

It would appear, from the best examples, that the proper way of beginning a preface to one's work is with a humble apology for having written at all.

you can't fit the same religion to every man any mo' than you can the same pair of breeches. The big man takes the big breeches an' the little man takes the small ones, an' it's jest the same with religion. It may be cut after one pattern, but it's might apt to get its shape from the wearer inside. Why, thar ain't any text so peaceable that it ain't drawn blood from somebody.

To seize the flying thought before it escapes us is our only touch with reality.