I have been an author for 20 years and an ass for 55.

No one is sane, straight along, year in and year out, and we all know it. Our insanities are of varying sorts, and express themselves in varying forms-fortunately harmless forms as a rule.

Of the demonstrably wise there are but two: those who commit suicide, & those who keep their reasoning faculties atrophied with drink.

I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way: by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else... I will offer here, as a sound maxim, this: That we can't reach old age by another man's road.

How unfortunate and how narrowing a thing it is for a man to have wealth who makes a god of it instead of a servant

Temperate temperance is best; intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance.

There is no salvation for us but to adopt Civilization and lift ourselves down to its level.