Men write many fine and plausible arguments in support of monarchy, but the fact remains that where every man has a voice, brutal laws are impossible

I asked Tom if countries always apologized when they had done wrong, and he says - "Yes; the little ones does".

Custom is custom: it is built of brass, boiler-iron, granite; facts, reasonings, arguments have no more effect upon it than the idle winds have upon Gibraltar.

The equator was wisely put where it is, because if it had been run through Europe all the kings would have tried to grab it.

Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.

A discriminating irreverence is the creator and protector of human liberty.

Written things are not for speech; their form is literary; they are stiff, inflexible, and will not lend themselves to happy and effective delivery with the tongue-where their purpose is to merely entertain, not instruct; they have to be limbered up, broken up, colloquialized and turned into common forms of premeditated talk-otherwise they will bore the house and not entertain it.