We combat obstacles in order to get repose, and when got, the repose is insupportable.

No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else.

The American man is a very simple and cheap mechanism. The American woman I find a complicated and expensive one. Contrasts of feminine types are possible. I am not absolutely sure that there is more than one American man.

If our minds could get hold of one abstract truth, they would be immortal so far as that truth is concerned. My trouble is to find out how we can get hold of the truth at all.

Women have, commonly, a very positive moral sense; that which they will, is right; that which they reject, is wrong; and their will, in most cases, ends by settling the moral.

A society in stable equilibrium is-by definition-one that has no history and wants no historians.

Every one must bear his own universe, and most persons are moderately interested in learning how their neighbors have managed to carry theirs.