If my future were black, it was better surely to face it like a man than to attempt to brighten it by mere will-o’-the-wisps of the imagination.

A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

Where there is no imagination there is no horror.

The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.

I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.

London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.

When the impossible has been eliminated, all that remains no matter how improbable is possible.

It’s quite simple. Death isn’t what we think it is. It isn’t life which ends but time which stops.

Why do you look like that, Duane?""Like what, Cletus?""Like your heart is diseased.

Never was a faithful prayer lost. Some prayers have a longer voyage than others but then they return with their richer lading at last so that the praying soul is a gainer by waiting for an answer.

The music of this opera (Madame Butterfly) was dictated to me by God. I was merely instrumental in getting it on paper and communicating it to the public.

All women are created equal, then some become Мarines.

I like being around people that mean what they say.

I'm interested in how a lot of people pull objects together to form an environment that we feel reflects ourselves or makes us feel comfortable.

Several experts on the Middle East concur that the Middle East cannot be democratized

If the mind is intensely eager, everything can be accomplished—mountains can be crumbled into atoms.