When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.

I am trying to get the hang of this new fangled writing machine, but I am not making a shining success of it. However, this is the first attempt I have ever made & yet I perceive I shall soon & easily acquire a fine facility in its use. ... The machine has several virtues. I believe it will print faster than I can write. One may lean back in his chair & work it. It piles an awful stack of words on one page. It don't muss things or scatter ink blots around. Of course it saves paper.

The old Irish when immersing a babe at baptism left out the right arm so that it would remain pagan for good fighting

By his father he is English, by his mother he is Americanto my mind the blend which makes the perfect man.

Sane and intelligent human beings are like all other human beings, and carefully and cautiously and diligently conceal their private real opinions from the world and give out fictitious ones in their stead for general consumption.

When the human race has once acquired a superstition, nothing short of death is ever likely to remove it.

You can't reason someone out of something that they weren't reasoned into in the first place.