No man is useless while he has a friend.

We got together in a few days a company of the toughest old salts imaginable--not pretty to look at, but fellows, by their faces, of the most indomitable spirit.

Doubtless the world is quite right in a million ways; but you have to be kicked about a little to convince you of the fact.

I am not afraid of the truth, if any one could tell it me, but I am afraid of parts of it impertinently uttered.

It is just this rage for consideration that has betrayed the dog into his satellite position as the friend of man. The cat, an animal of franker appetites, preserves his independence. But the dog, with one eye ever on the audience, has been wheedled into slavery, and praised and patted into the renunciation of his nature. Once he ceased hunting and became man's plate-licker, the Rubicon was crossed. Thenceforth he was a gentleman of leisure; and except the few whom we keep working, the whole race grew more and more self-conscious, mannered and affected.

One more touch of the bow, smell of the virginal Green - one more, and my bosom Feels new life with an ecstasy.

Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular-letter to the friends of him who writes it.