Sometimes people do get hurt

A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle; ...they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble for little mean advantages over each other; age creeps upon them; infirmities follow; ...those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to aching grief. It comes at last--the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them--and they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence, ...a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever.

If you have to swallow a frog, don't stare at it too long.

But the people cannot have wells, and so they take rain-water. Neither can they conveniently have cellars or graves, the town being built upon "made ground"; so they do without both, and few of the living complain, and none of the others.

When it comes down to pure ornamental cursing, the native American is gifted above the sons of men.

Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.

The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow.