A judicious man looks at Statistics, not to "get knowledge, but to save himself from having ignorance foisted 'on him".

Laughter is one of the very privileges of reason, being confined to the human species.

Venerable to me is the hard hand,--crooked, coarse,--wherein, notwithstanding, lies a cunning virtue, indispensably royal as of the sceptre of the planet.

Thou fool! Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom; that idle crag thou sittest on is six thousand years of age.

It is not a lucky word, this name impossible; no good comes of those who have it so often in their mouths.

Rest is for the dead.

Stern accuracy in inquiring, bold imagination in describing, these are the cogs on which history soars or flutters and wobbles.