My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.

The New York papers have long known that no large question is ever really settled until I have been consulted.

Being made merely in the image of God but not otherwise resembling him enough to be mistaken by anybody but a very near sighted person.

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society.

...ignorant as the unborne babe! ignorant as unborn twins!

Optimist: day dreamer more elegantly spelled.