When the chopper would praise a pine, he will commonly tell you that the one he cut was so big that a yoke of oxen stood on its stump; as if that were what the pine had grown for, to become the footstool of oxen.

As for the complex ways of living, I love them not, however much I practice them. In as many places as possible, I will get my feet down to the earth.

Whoever can discern truth has received his commission from a higher source than the chiefest justice in the world who can discernonly law. He finds himself constituted judge of the judge. Strange that it should be necessary to state such simple truths!

We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.

How sweet it would be to treat men and things, for an hour, for just what they are!

It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.

Routine is a ground to stand on, a wall to retreat to; we cannot draw on our boots without bracing ourselves against it.