The spider-mind acquires a faculty of memory, and, with it, a singular skill of analysis and synthesis, taking apart and putting together in different relations the meshes of its trap. Man had in the beginning no power of analysis or synthesis approaching that of the spider, or even of the honey-bee; but he had acute sensibility to the higher forces.

One could not stay a month without loving the shabby town

Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.

The less a tourist knows, the fewer mistakes he need make, for he will not expect himself to explain ignorance.

American society is a sort of flat, fresh-water pond which absorbs silently, without reaction, anything which is thrown into it.

It is now conceded that all idea of British intervention is at an end... I want to hug the army of the Potomac. I want to get the whole army of Vicksburg drunk at my own expense. I want to fight some small man and lick him.

The work of internal government has become the task of controlling the thousands of fifth-rate men.