In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.

One frequently only finds out how really beautiful a beautiful woman is after considerable acquaintance with her.

Give a man a reputation as an early riser and he can sleep 'til noon.

I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.

Ah, that shows you the power of music, that magician of magician, who lifts his wand and says his mysterious word and all things real pass away and the phantoms of your mind walk before you clothed in flesh.

There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them remain.

I would rather go to bed with Lillian Russell stark naked than Ulysses S Grant in full military regalia.