The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little. |
True irreverence is disrespect for another man’s god. |
Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to. |
Put all your eggs in the one basket and--WATCH THAT BASKET. |
Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins. |
The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them. |
Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with. |
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. |
To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours. |
By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean. |
When angry, count four; when very angry, swear. |
The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds. |
A classic: something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read. |
There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure. |
What, then, is the true Gospel of consistency? Change. Who is the really consistent man? The man who changes. Since change is the law of his being, he cannot be consistent if he sticks in a rut. |
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. |
The very ink in which history is written is merely fluid prejudice. |
Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied. |
There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist. |
Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed. |
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. |
My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water. |
Nothing that grieves us can be called little. By the eternal laws of proportion a child’s loss of a doll and a king’s loss of a crown are events of the same size. |
There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy. |
War talk by men who have been in a war is always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon is likely to be dull. |
There is nothing you can say in answer to a compliment. I have been complimented myself a great many times, and they always embarrass me--I always feel that they have not said enough. |
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. |
We have not all had the good fortune to be ladies. We have not all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground. |
It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart: the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you. |
France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country. France has usually been governed by prostitutes. |
