“It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.”
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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 [...]
Definition of a Classic
“A classic—something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”
Future Heroes in Cradles Today
“Among the three or four million cradles now rocking in the land are some which this nation would preserve for ages as sacred things, if we could know which ones they are.”
Babies as Common Ground
“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.”
On Crowded Court Dockets
“A crowded police court docket is the surest of all signs that trade is brisk and money plenty.”
Soap and Education Can Be Deadly
“Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.”
The Man Who Doesn’t Read Books
“The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”
Statemanship and Morality
“In statesmanship get the formalities right, never mind about the moralities.”
School Boards and Idiots
“In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards.”
Grief and Joy
“Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.”
Slander
“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.”
Friends on the Hill of Prosperity
There is an old-time toast which is golden for its beauty. “When you ascend the hill of prosperity may you not meet a friend.”
Congress, the American Criminal Class
“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”
