“We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know how it is made…” [...]
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The Benefits of Travel
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts…” [...]
Animals and Man’s Vanity
“It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.”
People Want to be Admired
“It is human nature to take delight in exciting admiration. It is what prompts children to say “smart” things, and do absurd ones, and in other ways “show off” when company is present. It is what makes gossips turn out in rain and storm to go and be the first to tell a startling bit of news.”
Use Plain, Simple Language
“I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English–it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them–then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.”
A Personal Stake Leads to Action
“It is always the way; words will answer as long as it is only a person’s neighbor who is in trouble, but when that person gets into trouble himself, it is time that the King rise up and do something.”
Judge People by Their Accomplishments
“When we do not know a person — and also when we do — we have to judge his size by the size and nature of his achievements, as compared with the achievements of others in his special line of business — there is no other way.”
A Man’s Self-Approval
“A man will do ANYTHING, no matter what it is, TO SECURE HIS SPIRITUAL COMFORT; and he can neither be forced nor persuaded to any act which has not that goal for its object. …A man cannot be comfortable without HIS OWN approval. He will secure the largest share possible of that, at all costs, all sacrifices.”
I Thoroughly Disapprove of Duels
“I thoroughly disapprove of duels. I consider them unwise, and I know they are dangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me now, I would go to that man and take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet retired spot, and kill him.”
On Criticizing Jane Austen
“I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin.”
Proportionate Grief
“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.”
Patriotic Loyalty and Responsibility
“You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one’s country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can [...]
To Promise Not to do a Thing
“To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.”
Work and Play
“Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”
French Idiots
“In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.”
A Prodigious Quantity of Mind
“I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.”
Our Adversaries Are Insane
“The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane. When I look around me, I am often troubled to see how many people are mad.”
Using the Right Words
“A powerful agent is the right word…Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.”
The Silent Colossal National Lie
“The spoken lie is of no consequence, and it is not worth while to go around fussing about it and trying to make believe that it is an important matter. The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples—that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at.”
Definition of a Classic
“A classic—something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”
