[The Bible is] a mass of fables and traditions, mere mythology.

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.

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

Nothing seems to please a fly so much as to be taken for a currant; and if it can be baked in a cake and palmed off on the unwary, it dies happy.

I know the look of an apple that is roasting and sizzling on the hearth on a winter's evening, and I know the comfort that comes of eating it hot, along with some sugar and a drench of cream... I know how the nuts taken in conjunction with winter apples, cider, and doughnuts, make old people's tales and old jokes sound fresh and crisp and enchanting.

Memories which someday will become all beautiful when the last annoyance that encumbers them shall have faded out of our minds.