In the small town of Hannibal, Missouri, when I was a boy, everybody was poor, but didn't know it; and everybody was comfortable and did know it.

I don't want no better book than what your face is.

I hate to hear people say this Judge will vote so and so, because he is a Democrat -- and this one so and so because he is a Republican. It is shameful. The Judges have the Constitution for their guidance; they have no right to any politics save the politics of rigid right and justice when they are sitting in judgment upon the great matters that come before them.

Imagine, if you will, that I am an idiot. Then, imagine that I am also a Congressman. But, alas, I repeat myself.

The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise.

An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before. An American is a person who does things because they haven't been done before.

Too much is just enough.