The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise.

A banquet is probably the most fatiguing thing in the world except ditch digging.

Every man is wholly honest to himself and to God, but not to any one else.

The newspaper that obstructs the law on a trivial pretext, for money's sake, is a dangerous enemy to the public weal. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.

We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess. Sometimes we are too close to the scene, to see clearly. We "know" ourselves so well that we cannot see how we are perceived by others. Our opinion of ourselves is only "one" opinion and it may not be the truth.

Are you so unobservant as not to have found out that sanity and happiness are an impossible combination?

There is no such thing as an ordinary life.