A hanging in a good quarrel is an easy death they say, though I could never hear of any that came back to say so.

Lastly (and this is, perhaps, the golden rule), no woman should marry a man who does not smoke.

His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done, and raised up again into sober and fearful gratitude by the many he had come so near to doing, yet avoided.

The smack of California earth shall linger on the palate of your grandson.

The most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek.

When we have discovered a continent, or crossed a chain of mountains, it is only to find another ocean or another plain upon the further side. . . . O toiling hands of mortals! O wearied feet, travelling ye know not whither! Soon, soon, it seems to you, you must come forth on some conspicuous hilltop, and but a little way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires of El Dorado. Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.

I regard you with an indifference closely bordering on aversion.