The good Bishop of Assisi expressed a sort of horror at the hard life which the Little Brothers lived at the Portiuncula, without comforts, without possessions, eating anything they could get and sleeping anyhow on the ground. St. Francis answered him with that curious and almost stunning shrewdness which the unworldly can sometimes wield like a club of stone. He said, 'If we had any possessions, we should need weapons and laws to defend them.

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

Americans are a very backward people, with all the real virtues of a backward people; the patriarchal simplicity and human dignity of a democracy, and a respect for labor uncorrupted by cynicism.

It's not that we don't have enough scoundrels to curse; it's that we don't have enough good men to curse them.

And we were angry and poor and happy, And proud of seeing our names in print.

You never know the best about men until you know the worst about them.

London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation.