Circumstances make man, not man circumstances.

There isn't anything you can't stand if you are only born and bred to it.

Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.

It is no harm to be an ass, if one is content to bray and not kick.

Blasphemy? No, it is not blashphemy. If God is as vast as that, he is above blasphemy; if he is as little as that, He is beneath it.

There is only one expert who is qualified to examine the souls and the life of a people and make a valuable report - the native novelist. ... And when a thousand able novels have been written, there you have the soul of the people; and not anywhere else can these be had.

A man accustomed to American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe, but I think he would gradually waste away, and eventually die.