[On spiritualism:] I always knew the living talked rot, but it's nothing to the rot the dead talk.

What a pity, when Christopher Colombus discovered America, that he ever mentioned it.

The Almighty is a wonderful handicapper: He will not give us everything.

I was born in the country of Hogg and Scott between the Yarrow and the Tweed, in the year 1864.

My sort of looks are of the kind that bore me when I see them on other people.

Till I see money spent on the betterment of man instead of on his idleness and destruction, I shall not believe in any perfect form of government.

The first element of greatness is fundamental humbleness (this should not be confused with servility); the second is freedom from self; the third is intrepid courage, which, taken in its widest interpretation, generally goes with truth; and the fourth-the power of love-although I have put it last, is the rarest.