The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no thirdclass carriages, and one soul is as good as another.

What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.

Every drunken skipper trusts to Providence. But one of the ways of Providence with drunken skippers is to run them on the rocks.

[Man] progresses in all things by making a fool of himself.

The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.

I was taught when I was young that if people would only love one another, all would be well with the world. I found when I tried to put that into practice, not only were other people seldom lovable but I wasn't very lovable myself.

You have set up in New York Harbor a monstrous idol which you call Liberty. The only thing that remains to complete that monument is to put on its pedestal the inscription written by Dante on the gate of hell: All hope abandon ye who enter here.