Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.

I should have been glad to acquire some sort of idea of Hindu theology, ... but the difficulties were too great.

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for certain that just ain't true." Thinking that you know the future.

Now he found out a new thing--namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.