No man is straitly honest to any but himself and God.

There is only one expert who is qualified to examine the souls and the life of a people and make a valuable report - the native novelist. ... And when a thousand able novels have been written, there you have the soul of the people; and not anywhere else can these be had.

Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom.

Cats are the wildest of the tame and the tamest of the wild

It is not like studying German, where you mull along, in a groping, uncertain way, for thirty years; and at last, just as you think you've got it, they spring the subjunctive on you, and there you are. No- and I see now plainly enough, that the great pity about the German language is, that you can't fall off it and hurt yourself. There is nothing like that feature to make you attend strictly to business.

The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetics in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve.

Protestant parents still keep a Bible handy in the house, so that the children can study it, and one of the first things the little boys and girls learn is to be righteous and holy and not piss against the wall. They study those passages more than they study any others, except those which incite to masturbation. Those they hunt out and study in private.