in order to make a man or boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.

Hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon morals, politics or religion which he got otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly speaking, there are none but corn-pone opinions. And broadly speaking, Corn-Pone stands for Self-Approval. Self-approval is acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is Conformity.

Go to bed early, get up early-this is wise.

[On Dutch flat poetry]: It is too smooth and blubbery; it reads like butter-milk gurgling from a jug.

The true pioneer of civilization is not the newspaper, not religion, not the railroad - but whiskey!

Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.

I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.