It is better to support schools than jails.

Intellectual ''work'' is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward.

Custom is, to think a handsome thing in private but tame it down in the utterance.

The Autocrat of Russia possesses more power than any other man in the earth; but he cannot stop a sneeze.

Very well, then, where do we arrive? Where do we arrive with our respect, our homage, our filial affection? At Adam! At Adam, every time. We can't build a monument to a germ, but we can build one to Adam, who is in the way to turn myth in in fifty years and be entirely forgotten in two hundred. We can build a monument and save his name to the world forever, and we'll do it!

Happiness ain't a thing in itself - it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant.

I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I’m not feeling so well myself.