“The leaning of sophists toward the bypaths of apocrypha is a constant quantity. The highroads are dreary but they lead to the town.”
“The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.”
“Give yourself something to work toward -- constantly.”
“Idleness, pleasure, what abysses! To do nothing is a dreary course to take, be sure of it. To live idle upon the substance of society! To be useless, that is to say, noxious! This leads straight to the lowest depth of misery. ”
“I have always regarded as a stroke of good fortune that I was not born or brought up in a small American town; they may be the backbone of the nation, but they are also the backbone of ignorance, bigotry, and boredom, all in vast quantities.”
“Lead your life so you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip. ”