[P]hilosophy . . .consists chiefly in suggesting unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.

History is only a catalogue of the forgotten.

[Adams] supposed that, except musicians, everyone thought Beethoven a bore, as every one except mathematicians thought mathematics a bore.

One could not stay a month without loving the shabby town

The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim's sympathies.

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

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.