A German joke is no laughing matter.

I said there was but one solitary thing about the past worth remembering, and that was the fact that it is past-can't be restored.

When I was fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have him around. When I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. See what happens when you "know it all", at any stage of life? Farther down the track you may see clearly how certain personal opinions, held onto too tightly, could be fogging up the view, and providing incorrect insight. Prosperity is the best protector of principle.

Well, my book is written-let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying; but now they can't ever be said. And besides, they would require a library-and a pen warmed up in hell.

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.

As a rule, we go about with masks, we go about looking honest, and we are able to conceal ourselves all through the day.

I have seen slower people than I am and more deliberate... and even quieter, and more listless, and lazier people than I am. But they were dead.