When it comes down to pure ornamental cursing, the native American is gifted above the sons of men.

If true, rarely beautiful. If beautiful, rarely true.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

To be great, truly great, you have to be the kind of person who makes the others around you great.

Gold in its native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and only lowborn metals excite the admiration of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter. However, like the rest of the world, I still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying men of mica.

We all know about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of the bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster. It seems almost certain that we have been choosing the wrong time for studying the oyster.

The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples — that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at.