My favorite figure of the American author is that of a man who breeds a favorite dog, which he throws into the Mississippi River for the pleasure of making a splash. The river does not splash, but it drowns the dog.

The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin.

The Virgin filled so enormous a space in the life and thought of the time that one stands now helpless before the mass of testimony to her direct action and constant presence in every moment and form of the illusion which men thought they thought their existence.

You can't use tact with a Congressman! A Congressman is a hog! You must take a stick and hit him on the snout!

The President may indeed in one respect resemble the commander of an army in peace, but in another and more essential sense he resembles the commander of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek. He must sooner or later be convinced that a perpetual calm is as little to his purpose as a perpetual hurricane, and that without headway the ship can arrive nowhere.

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

Unity is vision; it must have been part of the process of learning to see.