In all the ages the Roman Church has owned slaves, bought and sold slaves, authorized and encouraged her children to trade in them. . . . There were the texts; there was no mistaking their meaning; . . . she was doing in all this thing what the Bible had mapped out for her to do. So unassailable was her position that in all the centuries she had no word to say against human slavery.

There ain't nothing more to write about and I'm rotten glad of it, because if I'd know'd what trouble it was to make a book, I wouldn't a tackled it.

One of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it.

Writing is the easiest thing in the world.... Just try it sometime. I sit up with a pipe in my mouth and a board on my knees and I scribble away.

Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know.

The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn't it be?--it is the same the angels breathe.

Teaching is like trying to hold 35 corks underwater at once.