In order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain... Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do and... Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

I do not like an injurious lie, except when it injures somebody else.

It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a telephone or any other important thing-and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others.

We used to trust in God. I think it was in 1863 that some genius suggested that it be put upon the gold and silver coins which circulated among the rich. They didn't put it on the nickels and coppers because they didn't think the poor folks had any trust in God.

An enemy can partly ruin a man, but it takes a good-natured injudicious friend to complete the thing and make it perfect.

If a cat sits on a hot stove, that cat won't sit on a hot stove again. That cat won't sit on a cold stove either. That cat just don't like stoves.

The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book- a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day.