The most difficult We do not deal in facts when we are contemplating ourselves.

My own luck has been curious all my literary life; I never could tell a lie that anyone would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.

Sometimes my feelings are so hot that I have to take the pen and put them out on paper to keep them from setting me afire inside; then all that ink and labor are wasted because I can't print the results

As I have said before, I never had any large respect for good spelling. That is my feeling yet. Before the spelling-book came with its arbitrary forms, men unconsciously revealed shades of their characters, and also added enlightening shades of expression to what they wrote by their spelling, and so it is possible that the spelling-book has been a doubtful benevolence to us.

There is no salvation for us but to adopt Civilization and lift ourselves down to its level.

There are no wild animals until man makes them so.

Benaras is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together!