That is the consolation of a little mind; you have the fun of changing it without impeding the progress of mankind.

If a large city can, after intense intellectual efforts, choose for its mayor a man who merely will not steal from it, we consider it a triumph of the suffrage.

Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible.

There ought to be some sign in a book about man, that the writer knows thoroughly one man at least.

Literary people are forever judging the quality of the mind by the turn of expression.

Men will confess to treason, murder, arson, false teeth, or a wig. How many of them will own up to a lack of humor?

Politics is a place of humble hopes and strangely modest requirements, where all are good who are not criminal and all are wise who are not ridiculously otherwise.