An American has not seen the United States until he has seen Mardi-Gras in New Orleans.

A banquet is probably the most fatiguing thing in the world except ditchdigging. It is the insanest of all recreations. The inventor of it overlooked no detail that could furnish weariness, distress, harassment, and acute and long-sustained misery of mind and body.

The longing of my heart is a fairy portrait of myself: I want to be pretty; I want to eliminate facts and fill up the gap with charms.

Nothing agrees with me. If I drink coffee, it gives me dyspepsia; if I drink wine, it gives me the gout; if I go to church, it gives me dysentery.

Cold! If the thermometer had been an inch longer we'd all have frozen to death!

America cannot have an empire abroad and a Republic at home.

Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.