[Americans] were, for one thing, so smitten with the idea of progress that they invented things without having any idea whether those things would be of any use.

It is always quietly thrilling to find yourself looking at a world you know well but have never seen from such an angle before.

Nothing - really, absolutely nothing - says more about Victorian Britain and its capacity for brilliance than that the century's most daring and iconic building was entrusted to a gardener.

Widespread commercial distribution of ice was so new that 300 tons of the precious commodity melted at one port while customs officials tried to figure out how to classify it.

The author says the earliest Australian aborigines devoted extraordinary amounts of energy to enterprises no one now can understand.

There will never be an endTo this droning of the surf.

Like many people who dress in black, the lump of coal was interested in becoming an artist.

You can't dodge your responsibilities by saying they don't exist!

I see you're leaving me and taking up with the enemy, the cold comfort of the in-between, a little less than a human being.

The moonlight builds its cold chapel again out of piecemeal darkness.

None of us whether Men or Women but have so good an Opinion of our own Conduct as to believe we are fit, if not to direct others, at least to govern our selves.

Hillary Clinton truly is sincere, but she has to connect more with the American people in terms of what she believes in and how she intends to accomplish progress in their lives.

You suddenly find yourself somewhere and you wonder, how did I get in this room? That happens to me all the time, every day!

persons, with big wigs many of them and austere aspect, whom I take to be Professors of the Dismal Science… Coining “Dismal Science” as a nickname for Political Economy

I see a good deal of talk from Washington about lowering taxes-I hope they do get 'em lowered enough so people can afford to pay 'em