A man finds he has been wrong at every stage of his career, only to deduce the astonishing conclusion that he is at last entirely right.

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.

An aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding; and it is not to be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself.

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.

There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.

There's never a man looked me between the eyes and seen a good day a'terward.

Extreme busyness is a symptom of deficient vitality, and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity.