Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it onto future generations.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it

There's something very youthful about going through the generations without getting lost in them. I've always felt that I'm a little bit behind in the race. But I'm in the race, and then when they least expect it, I come out ahead.

Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity and beauty as conspicuously as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness and ugliness.

Cruelty must be whitewashed by a moral excuse, and pretense of reluctance

There are scores of thousands of human insects who are ready at a moment's notice to reveal the Will of God on every possible subject