No man pursues what he has at hand. No man recognizes the need of pursuit until that which he desires has escaped him..

There is no illusion so permanent as that which enables us to look backward with complacency; there is no mental process so deceptive as the comparin….

the most charming thing about youth is the tenacity of its impressions..

Those persons are happiest in this restless and mutable world who are in love with change, who delight in what is new simply because it differs from ….

It was hard to speed the male child up the stony heights of erudition, but it was harder still to check the female child at the crucial point, and ke….

When the milk of human kindness turns sour, it is a singularly unpalatable draught..

There are many ways of asking a favor; but to assume that you are granting the favor that you ask shows spirit and invention..

This is the sphinx of the hearthstone, the little god of domesticity, whose presence turns a house into a home..

Laughter springs from the lawless part of our nature..

People with theories of life are, perhaps, the most relentless of their kind, for no time or place is sacred from their devastating elucidations..

It is not depravity that afflicts the human race so much as a general lack of intelligence..

There is no liberal education for the under-languaged..

To be brave in misfortune is to be worthy of manhood; to be wise in misfortune is to conquer fate..

I do strive to think well of my fellow man, but no amount of striving can give me confidence in the wisdom of a congressional vote..

The essence of humor is that it should be unexpected, that it should embody an element of surprise, that it should startle us out of that reasonable ….

A villain must be a thing of power, handled with delicacy and grace. He must be wicked enough to excite our aversion, strong enough to arouse our fea….

If everybody floated with the tide of talk, placidity would soon end in stagnation. It is the strong backward stroke which stirs the ripples, and giv….

Next to the joy of the egotist is the joy of the detractor..

Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements..

if a man be discreet enough to take to hard drinking in his youth, before his general emptiness is ascertained, his friends invariably credit him wit….

I wonder what especial sanctity attaches itself to fifteen minutes. It is always the maximum and the minimum of time which will enable us to acquire ….