The good Lord didn't create anything without a purpose, but the fly comes close.

There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land (and work) again after a cheerful, careless voyage.

Crowds stand around all day long and criticise that bridge, and find fault with it, and tell with unlimited frankness how it ought to have been planned, and how they would have built it had the city granted them the $14,000 it cost. It is really refreshing to hang around these and listen to them. A foreigner would come to the conclusion that all America was composed of inspired professional bridge builders.

We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove. We have two opinions: one private, which we are afraid to express; and another one - the one we use - which we force ourselves to wear to please Mrs. Grundy, until habit makes us comfortable in it, and the custom of defending it presently makes us love it, adore it, and forget how pitifully we came by it. Look at it in politics.

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.