George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.

There are things which some people never attempt during their whole lives, but one of these is not poetry. Poetry attacks all human beings sooner or later, and, like the measles, is mild or violent according to the age of the sufferer.

Evolution is the law of policies: Darwin said it, Socrates endorsed it, Cuvier proved it and established it for all time in his paper on The Survival of the Fittest. These are illustrious names, this is a mighty doctrine: nothing can ever remove it from its firm base, nothing dissolve it, but evolution.

We take a natural interest in novelties, but it is against nature to take an interest in familiar things.

High and fine literature is wine, and mine is only water; but everybody likes water.

The man who is ostentatious of his modesty is twin to the statue that wears a fig-leaf.

But death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind; death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness; death was man’s best friend; when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free.