When I meet a government which says to me, "Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money?

I sailed on the North River last night with my flute, and my music was a tinkling stream which meandered with the river, and fell from note to note as a brook from rock to rock. I did not hear the strains after they had issued from the flute, but before they were breathed into it, for the original strain precedes the sound by as much as the echo follows after, and the rest is the perquisite of the rocks and trees and beasts. Unpremeditated music is the true gauge which measures the current of our thoughts, the very undertow of our life's stream.

I have heard a good many pretend that they are going to die; or that they have died, for aught that I know. Nonsense! I'll defy them to do it. They have n't got life enough in them.... Only half a dozen or so have died since the world began.

A man may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a good subject of the Turkish government.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable.

Man needs to know but little more than a lobster in order to catch him in his traps.

The sun rarely shines in history, what with the dust and confusion; and when we meet with any cheering fact which implies the presence of this luminary, we excerpt and modernize it.