He who demands little gets it.

a self-made martyr is a poor thing.

I haven't much opinion of words. They're apt to set fire to a dry tongue, that's what I say.

nations decay from within more often than they surrender to outward assault.

I am inclined to believe that a man may be free to do anything he pleases if only he will accept responsibility for whatever he does.

Surely the novel should be a form of art - but art was not enough. It must contain not only the perfection of art, but the imperfection of nature.

...America has enjoyed the doubtful blessing of a single-track mind. We are able to accommodate, at a time, only one national hero; and we demand that that hero shall be uniform and invincible. As a literate people we are preoccupied, neither with the race nor the individual, but with the type. Yesterday, we romanticized the "tough guy;" today, we are romanticizing the underprivileged, tough or tender; tomorrow, we shall begin to romanticize the pure primitive.