No country can reach a high stage of civilization without a leisure class.

the curse of human nature is imagination. When a long anticipated moment comes, we always find it pitched a note too low, for the wings of imagination are crushed into its withering sides under the crowding hordes of petty realities.

Nowhere can it rain harder and with a more tiresome persistence than in California during the brief season when it rains at all.

Fame compensates for a column of wants.

Has it ever occurred to you, that the rich are at the mercy of the poor, not the poor at that of the rich? Who permits us to be rich if not the poor?

The French are a race of individuals. There is no type.

Self-admiration giveth much consolation.