I have thought many times since that if poets when they get discouraged would blow their brains out, they could write very much better when they got well.

To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.

The Christian Bible is a drug store. It´s contents have remained the same but the medical practice continues. For 1,800 years these changes were slight--scarcely noticeable... The dull and ignorant physician day and night, and all the days and all the nights, drenched his patient with vast and hideous doses of the most repulsive drugs to be found in the store´s stock. He kept him religion sick for eighteen centuries, and allowed him not a well day during all that time.

Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass.

If the bubble reputation can be obtained only at the cannon's mouth, I am willing to go there for it, provided the cannon is empty.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

The proverb says, "Born lucky, always lucky," and I am very superstitious. As a small boy I was notoriously lucky. It was usual for one or two of our lads (per annum) to get drowned in the Mississippi or in Bear Creek, but I was pulled out in a 2/3 drowned condition 9 times before I learned to swim, and was considered to be a cat in disguise.