Truths and roses have thorns about them.

if i repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. what demon possessed me that i behaved so well?

Where there is a lull in truth an institution springs up.

Most men, it seems to me, do not care for Nature and would sell their share in all her beauty, as long as they may live, for a stated sum - many for a glass of rum. Thank God, men cannot as yet fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!

I could lecture on dry oak leaves; I could, but who would hear me? If I were to try it on any large audience, I fear it would be no gain to them, and a positive loss to me. I should have behaved rudely toward my rustling friends.

My facts shall be falsehoods to the common sense. I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologic. Facts which the mind perceived, thoughts which the body thought - with these I deal.

It is impossible to give a soldier a good education without making him a deserter. His natural foe is the government that drills him.