“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.”

“The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn't indicate or promise, and which the other kind of eye couldn't detect.”

“Jim said that bees won't sting idiots, but I didn't believe that, because I tried them lots of times myself and they wouldn't sting me.”

“Let us not be too particular. It is better to have old second-hand diamonds than none at all.”

“We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again and that is well but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.”

“Explaining humor is a lot like dissecting a frog, you learn a lot in the process, but in the end you kill it.”

“A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.”

“Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog.”

“If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.”

“She remained both girl and woman to the last day of her life. Under a grave and gentle exterior burned inextinguishable fires of sympathy, energy, devotion, enthusiasm, and absolutely limitless affection.”

“All I care to know about a man is that he is a human being... he can't be any worse.”

“I can last two months on a good compliment.”

“There are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer them, or turn them into literature.”

“It is easier to stay out than to get out.”

“Good breeding consists of concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.”

“Worrying is like paying a debt you don't owe.”

“Good judgement is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement.”

“Never be haughty to the humble, never be humble to the haughty.”

“What is joy without sorrow? what is success without failure? what is a win without a loss? what is health without illness? you have to experience each if you are to appreciate the other. there is always going to be suffering. it’s how you look at your suffering, how you deal with it, that will define you.”

“It's not what you don't know that kills you, it's what you know for sure that ain't true.”

“You can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.”

“Human pride is not worthwhile; there is always something lying in wait to take the wind out of it.”

“December is the toughest month of the year. Others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, October, August, and February.”