"That author, however, who has thought more than he has read, read more than he has written, and written more than he published, if he does not command success, has at least deserved it."

"We should have a glorious conflagration, if all who cannot put fire into their works would only consent to put their works into the fire."

"Style is indeed the valet of genius, and an able one too; but as the true gentleman will appear, even in rags, so true genius will shine, even through the coarsest style."

"Discretion has been termed the better part of valour, and it is more certain, that diffidence is the better part of knowledge."

"If thare iz enny human being that i thoroughly loath, it iz the one who haz nothing tew boast ov but hiz money--a mere pimp tew hiz welth."

"If we would all ov us take kare ov our own souls, and let our nabors alone, thare would be less time lost, and more souls saved."

"There iz no more real satisfackshun, in laying up in yure buzzum an injury than thare iz in stuffing a dead hornet, who haz stung you, and keeping him tew look at."

"Thare iz but phew people in this world underrated."

"The man who pitys everyboddy, wants watching, for the chances are that he iz gitting phatt slily on other peoples misfortunes."

"If we giv up our minds tew little things we never shall be fit for big ones. I knew a man once who could ketch more flies with one swoop ov his hand than enny boddy else could, and he want good at ennything else."

"It iz a darned sight eazier tew find six men who kan tell exactly how a thing ought tew be did than tew find one who will do it."

"I don't kno az i want tew bet enny money, and giv odds, on the man, who iz alwus anxious tew pray out loud, every chance he kan git."

"I don't beleaf in bad luck being sot for a man, like a trap, but i hav known lots ov folks, who if thare waz enny fust rate bad luck lieing around loose, would be sure tew git one foot in it enny how."

"I don't beleave in fighting; i am solemly aginst it; but if a man gits teu fighting, i am also solemly aginst hiz gitting licked. After a fight iz once opened, all the virtew thare iz in it iz tew lick the other party."

"Dangers are sum like a kold bath, very dangerous while you stand stripped on the bank, but often not only harmless, but invigorating, if you pitch into them."

""Familiarity breeds kontempt." This only applies tew men, not tew hot bukwheat slapkakes, well buttered and sugared."

"When a man gits tew talking about himself, he seldum fails tew be eloquent, and often reaches the sublime."

"Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just, But four times he who gets his blow in fust"

"Poverty is the stepmother of genius."

"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."

"I don't care how much a man talks, if he only says it in a few words."

"Nature never makes blunders; when she makes a fool she means it."

"Better make a weak man your enemy than your friend."

"Put an Englishman into the garden of Eden, and he would find fault with the whole blasted concern; put a Yankee in, and he would see where he could alter it to advantage; put an Irishman in, and he would want to boss the thing; put a Dutchman in, and he would proceed to plant it."

"Love is like the measles; we can't have it bad but once, and the later in life we have it the tougher it goes with us."

"A secret ceases to be a secret if it is once confided—it is like a dollar bill, once broken, it is never a dollar again."

"As in a game ov cards, so in the game ov life, we must play what is dealt tew us, and the glory consists, not so mutch in winning, as in playing a poor hand well."

"Most people when they cum tew yu for advice cum tew hav their own opinyuns strengthened, not correkted."

"Don't mistake vivacity for wit, thare iz about az mutch difference az thare iz between lightning and a lightning bug."

"Tew bring up a child in the wa he should go—travel that wa yourself."

"It iz comparitively eazy tew repent ov the sins that we hav committed, but tew repent ov thoze which we intend to commit, is asking tew mutch ov enny man, now days."

"The lion and the lamb may, possibly, sumtime lay down in this world together for a fu minnits, but when the lion kums tew git up, the lamb will be missing."

"I honestly beleave it iz better tew know nothing than two know what ain't so."

"The wheel that squeaks the loudest Is the one that gets the grease."

"Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed."

"Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them."

"A free press is the parent of much good in a state. But even a licentious press is a far less evil than a press that is enslaved, because both sides may be heard in the former case, but not in the latter. A licentious press may be an evil, an enslaved press must be so; for an enslaved press may cause error to be more current than wisdom, and wrong more powerful than right; a licentious press cannot efiect these things, for if it give the poison, it gives also the antidote, which an enslaved press withholds. An enslaved press is doubly fatal, it not only takes away the true light, for in that case we might stand still, but it sets up a false one, that decoys us to our destruction."

"We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often to despise what we really fear."

"If you cannot inspire a woman with love of you, fill her above the brim with love of herself;— all that runs over will be yours."

"Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship—never."

"Drunkenness is the vice of a good constitution or of a bad memory—of a constitution so treacherously good that it never bends till it breaks; or of a memory that recollects the pleasures of getting intoxicated, but forgets the pains of getting sober."

"Pedantry crams our heads with learned lumber, and takes out our brains to make room for it."

"With the offspring of genius, the law of parturition is reversed; the throes are in the conception, the pleasure in the birth."

"A feast is more fatal to love than a fast, and a surfeit than a starvation."

"Those illustrious men, who, like torches, have consumed themselves, in order to enlighten others, have often lived unrewarded, and died unlamented. But the tongues of aftertimes have done them justice in one sense, but injustice in another. They have honoured them with their praise, but they have disgraced them with their pity. They pity them forsooth, because they missed of present praise, and temporal emolument; things great indeed to the little, but little to the great."

"To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it; the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary."

"Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones."

"This tendency, however, to ascribe an universality of genius to great men, led Dryden to affirm, on the strength of two smart satyrical lines, that Virgil could have written a satire equal to Juvenal. But, with all due deference to Dryden, I conceive it much more manifest, that Juvenal could have written a better epic than Virgil, than that Virgil could have written a satire equal to Juvenal. Juvenal has many passages of the moral sublime far superior to any that can be found in Virgil, who, indeed, seldom attempts a higher flight than the sublime of description. Had Lucan lived, he might have rivalled them both, as he has all the vigour of the one, and time might have furnished him with the taste and elegance of the other."

"If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; If you would know, and not be known, live in a city."

"Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer."