...the person that had took a bull by the tail once had learnt sixty or seventy times as much as a person that hadn't, and said a person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was getting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn't ever going to grow dim or doubtful. Chances are, he isn't likely to carry the cat that way again, either. But if he wants to, I say let him!

Ours is a terrible religion. The fleets of the world could swim in spacious comfort in the innocent blood it has spilt.

Each person is born to one possession which outvalues all his others-his last breath.

We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.

I simply can't resist a cat, particularly a purring one.

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.

There was no place in the land where the seeker could not find some small budding sign of pity for the slave. No place in all the land but one - the pulpit. It yielded last; it always does. It fought a strong and stubborn fight, and then did what it always does, joined the procession - at the tail end. Slavery fell. The slavery texts in the Bible remained; the practice changed; that was all.