What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.

You perceive I generalize with intrepidity from single instances. It is the tourist's custom.

What a man sees in the human race is merely himself in the deep and honest privacy of his own heart. Byron despised the race because he despised himself. I feel as Byron did, and for the same reason.

To place man properly at the present time, he stands somewhere between the angels and the French.

A little starvation can really do more for the average sick man than can the best medicines and the best doctors.

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.

I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.