Duties are not performed for duty's sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty - the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself.

I have damaged my intellect trying to imagine why a man should want to invent a repeating clock, and how another man could be found to lust after it and buy it. The man who can guess these riddles is far on the way to guess why the human race was invented - which is another riddle which tires me.

We have an insanity plea that would have saved Cain.

Jesus died to save men - a small thing for an immortal to do - and didn't save many, anyway. But if he had been damned for the race, that would have been act of a size proper to a god, and would have saved the whole race.

Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.

The first half of my life I went to school, the second half of my life I got an education.

The report of my illness grew out of his (James Clemens) illness. The report of my death was an exaggeration.