"The dullest was struck by the contrast between the harsh, taciturn, gloomy commander, and the pirate whose laugh was gusty and ready, who roared ribald songs in a dozen languages, guzzled ale like a toper, and—apparently—had no thought for the morrow."

"Barbarism has its vices, its sophistries, no less than civilization. Your cynicisms and sophistications are weak and childish beside the elemental cynicism, the vital sophistication of what you call savagery. If our virtues were unspoiled as a new-born panther cub, our sins were older than Nineveh."

"The gorilla-slayer moved out into the glade. Massive, terrible, he was the personification of the primitive, the Stone Age. His mouth yawned in a red cavern of a grin; he bore himself with the haughty arrogance of savage might."

"A true fanatic, his promptings were reasons enough for his actions."

"I have never yet done a man to death by torture, but by God, sir, you tempt me!"

"The blare of the trumpets grew louder, like a deep golden tide surge, like the soft booming of the evening tides against the silver beaches of Valusia. The throng shouted, women flung roses from the roofs as the rhythmic chiming of silver hoofs came clearer and the first of the mighty array swung into view in the broad white street that curved round the golden-spired Tower of Splendor."

"Like the surface of the sea was the mirror of Tuzun Thune; hard as the sea in the sun's slanting beams, in the darkness of the stars, where no eye can pierce her deeps; vast and mystic as the sea when the sun smites her in such way that the watcher's breath is caught at the glimpse of tremendous abysses. So was the mirror in which Kull gazed."

"Slowly he rose, mechanically wiping his hands upon his cloak. A dark scowl had settled on his somber brow. Yet he made no wild, reckless vow, swore no oath by saints or devils. "Men shall die for this," he said coldly."

"Kull was still mazed. "But being a wizard, having knowledge of all the ages and despising gold, glory, and position, what could Kaanuub offer Tuzun Thune that would make of him a foul traitor?" "Gold, power, and position," grunted Brule. "The sooner you learn that men are men whether wizard, king, or thrall, the better you will rule, Kull.""

"For there are worlds beyond worlds, as Kull knows, and whether the wizard bewitched him by words or by mesmerism, vistas did open to the king’s gaze beyond that strange door, and Kull is less sure of reality since he gazed into the mirrors of Tuzun Thune."

"By the way, I sold another story, same company. “Wolfshead” twentyfive pages $40.00. After reading it, I’m not altogether sure I wasnt off my noodler when I wrote it."

"Fool that I was to trust a Frenchman!"

"It is only your habitual late riser who takes in the full flavor of Nature at those rare intervals when he gets up to go a-fishing. He brings virginal emotions and unsatiated eyes to the sparkling freshness of earth and stream and sky."

"The ring of a false coin is not more recognizable than that of a rhyme setting forth a simulated sorrow."

"What is slang in one age sometimes goes into the vocabulary of the purist in the next."

"To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent—that is to triumph over old age."

"Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades."

"Decoration Day is the most beautiful of our national holidays.[…] The grim cannon have turned into palm branches, and the shell and shrapnel into peach blossoms."

"A man is known by the company his mind keeps."

"The fate of the worm refutes the pretended ethical teaching of the proverb which assumes to illustrate the advantage of early rising and does so by showing how extremely dangerous it is."

"True art selects and paraphrases, but seldom gives a verbatim translation."

"The laurels of an orator who is not a master of literary art wither quickly."

"All the best sands of my life are somehow getting into the wrong end of the hour-glass. If I could only reverse it! Were it in my power to do so, would I?"

"Great orators who are not also great writers become very indistinct shadows to the generations following them. The spell vanishes with the voice."

"Shakespeare is forever coming into our affairs—putting in his oar, so to speak—with some pat word or sentence."

"Dialect tempered with slang is an admirable medium of communication between persons who have nothing to say and persons who would not care for anything properly said."

"The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks."

"There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite."

"Between the reputation of the author living and the reputation of the same author dead there is ever a wide discrepancy."

"After a debauch of thunder-shower, the weather takes the pledge and signs it with a rainbow."

"I like to have a thing suggested rather than told in full. When every detail is given, the mind rests satisfied, and the imagination loses the desire to use its own wings."

"Humor is a delicate shrub, with the passing hectic flush of its time. The current-topic variety is especially subject to early frosts, as is also the dialectic species."

"Books that have become classics—books that have had their day and now get more praise than perusal—always remind me of venerable colonels and majors and captains who, having reached the age limit, find themselves retired on half pay."

"The possession of gold has ruined fewer men than the lack of it. What noble enterprises have been checked and what fine souls have been blighted in the gloom of poverty the world will never know."

"He has the courage of his conviction and the intolerance of his courage. He is opposed to the death penalty for murder, but he would willingly have anyone electrocuted who disagreed with him on the subject."

"The man who suspects his own tediousness is yet to be born."

"O harp of life, so speedily unstrung!"

"Dear Lord, though I be changed to senseless clay. And serve the potter as he turns his wheel, I thank thee for the precious gift of tears!"

"What is lovely never dies, But passes into other loveliness, Star-dust, or sea-foam, or wingëd air."

"So precious life is! Even to the old The hours are as a miser’s coins!"

"Dwellers by the sea are generally superstitious; sailors always are. There is something in the illimitable expanse of sky and water that dilates the imagination."

"Conservatism and respectability have their values, certainly; but has not the unconventional its values also?"

"Here is woe, a self and not the mask of woe."

"Wide open and unguarded stand our gates, Named of the four winds, North, South, East and West; Portals that lead to an enchanted land Of cities, forests, fields of living gold Vast prairies, lordly summits touched with snow, Majestic rivers sweeping proudly past The Arab's date-palm and the Norseman's pine— A realm wherein are fruits of every zone, Airs of all climes, for lo! throughout the year The red rose blossoms somewhere—a rich land A later Eden planted in the wilds, With not an inch of earth within its bound But if a slave's foot press it sets him free. Here, it is written, Toil shall have its wage And Honor honor, and the humblest man Stand level with the highest in the law. Of such a land have men in dungeons dreamed And with the vision brightening in their eyes Gone smiling to the fagot and the sword. Wide open and unguarded stand our gates, And through them press a wild, a motley throng— Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes, Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho, Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Kelt, and Slav, Flying the Old World’s poverty and scorn; These bringing with them unknown gods and rites, Those tiger passions, here to stretch their claws. In street and alley what strange tongues are these, Accents of menace alien to our air, Voices that once the Tower of Babel knew! O, Liberty, white goddess, is it well To leave the gate unguarded? On thy breast Fold Sorrow's children, soothe the hurts of fate, Lift the downtrodden, but with the hand of steel Stay those who to thy sacred portals come To waste the gifts of freedom. Have a care Lest from thy brow the clustered stars be torn And trampled in the dust. For so of old The thronging Goth and Vandal trampled Rome, And where the temples of the Caesars stood The lean wolf unmolested made her lair."

"They fail, and they alone, who have not striven."

"If you chance to live in a town where the authorities cannot rest until they have destroyed every precious tree within their blighting reach, you will be especially charmed by the beauty of the streets of Portsmouth. In some parts of the town, when the chestnuts are in blossom, you would fancy yourself in a garden in fairyland."

"Or light or dark, or short or tall, She sets a springe to snare them all: All's one to her—above her fan She'd make sweet eyes at Caliban."

"When Washington visited Portsmouth in 1789 he was not much impressed by the architecture of the little town that had stood by him so stoutly in the struggle for independence."

"Somewhere—in desolate wind-swept space— In Twilight-land—in No-man’s land— Two hurrying Shapes met face to face, And bade each other stand. “And who are you?” cried one, a-gape, Shuddering in the gloaming light. “I know not,” said the second Shape, “I only died last night!”"

"Famous old houses seem to have an intuitive perception of the value of corner lots. If it is a possible thing, they always set themselves down on the most desirable spot."