The greater number of men are merely corporals.

The sport of digging the bait is nearly equal to that of catching the fish, when one's appetite is not too keen.

Politics is the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its opposite halves - sometimes split into quarters - which grind on each other. Not only individuals but states have thus a confirmed dyspepsia.

It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain. I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted without being aware that we had come very near to one another.

Poetry is the mysticism of mankind.

So near along life's stream are the fountains of innocence and youth making fertile its sandy margin; and the voyageur will do well to replenish his vessels often at these uncontaminated sources.

I do not judge men by anything they can do. Their greatest deed is the impression they make on me.