A new oath holds pretty well; but... when it is become old, and frayed out, and damaged by a dozen annual retryings of its remains, it ceases to be serviceable; any little strain will snap it.

College is a place where a professor's lecture notes go straight to the students' lecture notes, without passing through the brains of either.

Sane and intelligent human beings are like all other human beings, and carefully and cautiously and diligently conceal their private real opinions from the world and give out fictitious ones in their stead for general consumption.

I have witnessed and greatly enjoyed the first act of everything which Wagner created, but the effect on me has always been so powerful that one act was quite sufficient; whenever I have witnessed two acts I have gone away physically exhausted; and whenever I have ventured an entire opera the result has been the next thing to suicide.

That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it.

Bridgeport?" Said I. "Camelot," Said he.

The joy of killing! the joy of seeing killing done - these are traits of the human race at large.