Great Throughts Treasury

"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn?t know."

"I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I?m not feeling so well myself."

"I was young and foolish then; now I am old and foolisher."

"I was standing in our dining-room thinking of nothing in particular, when a cablegram was put into my hand. It said, 'Susy was peacefully released today.'"

"I wish Europe would let Russia annihilate Turkey a little--not much, but enough to make it difficult to find the place again without a divining-rod or a diving-bell."

"I went to Maui to stay a week and remained five. I never spent so pleasant a month before, or bade any place goodbye so regretfully. I have not once thought of business, or care or human toil or trouble or sorrow or weariness, and the memory of it will remain with me always."

"I wish I could make him understand that a loving good heart is riches enough, and that without it intellect is poverty."

"I wish to become rich, so that I can instruct the people and glorify honest poverty a little, like those kind-hearted, fat, benevolent people do."

"I wish to come down eighteen hundred years later and refer to a remark made by one of the Latin historians. Some Christians were persecuted in Rome through error, they being 'mistaken for Jews.' The meaning seems plain. These pagans had nothing against Christians, but they were quite ready to persecute Jews. For some reason or other they hated a Jew before they even knew what a Christian was. May I not assume, then, that the persecution of Jews is a thing which antedates Christianity and was not born of Christianity?"

"I wonder how much it would take to buy a soap bubble, if there were only one in the world."

"I wonder if God created man because He was disappointed with the monkey."

"I would do it myself, but my intelligence is out of repair."

"I would like to live in Manchester, England. The transition between Manchester and death would be unnoticeable."

"I would rather have my ignorance than another man's knowledge, because I have so much more of it."

"I?m opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position."

"I`ve had a very difficult life. Fortunately, most of it didn`t happen."

"I?m so happy I could scalp somebody. (Said after he got married)"

"Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own."

"If all men knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends in the world."

"If a person offends you, and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures; simply watch your chance, and hit him with a brick."

"If animals could speak the dog would be a a blundering outspoken fellow, but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much."

"If all the fools in this world should die, lordly God how lonely I should be."

"If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be -- a Christian."

"If everyone was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes."

"I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one."

"If a cat sits on a hot stove, that cat won't sit on a hot stove again. That cat won't sit on a cold stove either. That cat just don't like stoves."

"If books are not good company, where shall I find it?"

"Good judgment comes from experience. And where does experience come from? Experience comes from bad judgment."