Life is short, break the rules.

One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed it. They also believed the world was flat.

I could have become a soldier if I had waited; I knew more about retreating than the man who invented retreating.

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.

When a teacher calls a boy by his entire name, it means trouble.

A man who keeps company with glaciers comes to feel tolerably insignificiant by and by. The Alps and the glaciers together are able to take every bit of conceit out of a man and reduce his self-importance to zero if he will only remain within the influence of their sublime presence long enough to give it a fair and reasonable chance to do its work.

Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in 'Deerslayer,' and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record.