I think a compliment ought always to precede a complaint, where one is possible, because it softens resentment and insures for the complaint a courteous and gentle reception.

When the world is made to be idiot-proof, the world will become overpopulated with idiots.

There are three kinds of liars: liars, damned liars, and statisticians

In God We Trust. It is the choicest compliment that has ever been paid us, and the most gratifying to our feelings. It is simple, direct, gracefully phrased; it always sounds well - In God We Trust. I don't believe it would sound any better if it were true.

To go abroad has something of the same sense that death brings. I am no longer of ye-what ye say of me is now of no consequence.

Gratitude is a debt which usually goes on accumulating like blackmail; the more you pay, the more is exacted.

My father and I were always on the most distant terms when I was a boy--a sort of armed neutrality, so to speak. At irregular intervals this neutrality was broken, and suffering ensued; but I will be candid enough to say that the breaking and the suffering were always divided up with strict impartiality between us--which is to say, my father did the breaking, and I did the suffering.