Language is not subtle enough, tender enough, to express all that we feel; and when language fails, the highest and deepest longings are translated into music. Music is the sunshine - the climate - of the soul, and it floods the heart with a perfect June.

The present is the necessary product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future.

No one can control his own opinion or his own belief. My belief was forced upon me by my surroundings. I am the product of all circumstances that have in any way touched me.

I would rather smoke one cigar than hear two sermons.

Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment.

Insolence is not logic; epithets are the arguments of malice.

Of course, ministers look upon theaters as rival attractions, and most of their hatred is born of business views. They think people ought to be driven to church by having all other places closed. In my judgment the theater has done good, while the church has done harm. The drama never has insisted upon burning anybody. Persecution is not born of the stage.