Stripping away the irrational, the illogical, and the impossible, I am left with atheism. I can live with that.

Would it not be prudent to get our civilization tools together, and see how much stock is left on hand in the way of Glass Beads and Theology, and Maxim Guns and Hymn Books, and Trade Gin and Torches of Progress and Enlightenment (patent adjustable ones, good to fire villages with, upon occasion), and balance the books, and arrive at the profit and loss, so that we may intelligently decide whether to continue the business or sellout the property and start a new Civilization Scheme on the proceeds.

You meet people who forget you. You forget people you meet. But sometimes you meet those people you can't forget. Those are your 'friends

When the time comes that a man has had his dinner, then the true man comes to the surface

A soiled baby with a neglected nose cannot be conscientiously regarded as a thing of beauty.

A country without a patent office and good patent laws is just a crab, and can't travel any way but sideways and backways.

In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore, in the Old Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long, seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesome returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.