The mind is like a sheet of white paper in this, that the impressions it receives the oftenest, and retains the longest, are black ones.

Be what you are. This is the first step toward becoming better than you are.

Children always turn towards the light. Oh that grown-up people in this world became like little children!

By the ancients, courage was regarded as practically the main part of virtue; by us, though I hope we are not less brave, purity is so regarded now.

Many people make their own God; and he is much what the French may mean when they talk of le bon Dieu,--very indulgent, rather weak, near at hand when we want anything, but far away out of sight when we have a mind to do wrong. Such a God is as much an idol as if he were an image of stone.

The next best thing to a very good joke is a very bad one.

Everybody has his own theatre, in which he is manager, actor, prompter, playwright, sceneshifter, boxkeeper, doorkeeper, all in one, and audience into the bargain.