...the administration of the law can never go lax where every individual sees to it that it grows not lax in his own case, or in cases which fall under his eyes.

New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.

Foreigners cannot enjoy our food, I suppose, any more than we can enjoy theirs. It is not strange; for tastes are made, not born. I might glorify my bill of fare until I was tired; but after all, the Scotchman would shake his head and say, 'Where's your haggis?' and the Fijan would sigh and say, 'Where's your missionary?'

It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.

I bring you this stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored from pirate raids in Kiao-Chow, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Phillipines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and a towel, but hide the looking-glass.

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.

Missionarying was a better thing in those days than it is in ours. All you had to do was to cure the head savage´s sick daughter by a miracle- a miracle like the miracle of Lourdes in our day, for instance- and immediately that head savage was your convert, and filled to the eyes with a new convert´s enthusiasm. You could sit down and make yourself easy now. He would take the ax and convert the rest of the nation himself.