Whenever a man reaches the top of the political ladder, his enemies unite to pull him down. His friends become critical and exacting.

I firmly believe, that before many centuries more, science will be the master of man. The engines he will have invented will be beyond his strength to control. Someday, science shall have the existence of mankind in its power, and the human race commit suicide by blowing up the world.

Silence alone is respectable and respected. I believe God to be silence.

I tell you the solemn truth, that the doctrine of the Trinity is not so difficult to accept for a working proposition as any one of the axioms of physics.

Nothing is more tiresome than a superannuated pedagogue.

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.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. The imagination must be given not wings but weights.