With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare when I measure my mind against his. . . . It would positively be a relief to me to dig him up and throw stones at him.

Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.

What right has any human being to talk of bringing up a child? You do not bring up a tree or a plant. It brings itself up. You have to give it a fair chance by tilling the soil.

Success covers a multitude of blunders.

The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist

The most sublime courage I have ever witnessed has been among that class too poor to know they possessed it, and too humble for the world to discover it.

Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men.