If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.

Ours is the "land of the free"-nobody denies that-nobody challenges it. (Maybe it is because we won't let other people testify.)

The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.

Our lives, our liberty, and our property are never in greater danger than when Congress is in session.

The report of my illness grew out of his (James Clemens) illness. The report of my death was an exaggeration.

To be busy is man's only happiness.

Wherein lies a poet's claim to originality? That he invents his incidents? No. That he was present when his episodes had their birth? No. That he was first to repeat them? No. None of these things has any value. He confers on them their only originality that has any value, and that is his way of telling them.