It is absurd to say that there are neither ruins nor curiosities in America when they have their mothers and their manners.

I have spent most of the day putting in a comma and the rest of the day taking it out.

Through our sunless lanes creeps Poverty with her hungry eyes, and Sin with his sodden face follows close behind her. Misery wakes us in the morning and Shame sits with us at night.

Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.

Nothing is so aggravating than calmness.

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

All modes of government are failures. Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things. Oligarchies are unjust to the many, and ochlocracies are unjust to the few. High hopes were once formed of democracy; but democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. It has been found out. I must say that it was high time, for all authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised.