'Society' in America means all the honest, kindly-mannered, pleasant- voiced women, and all the good, brave, unassuming men, betwe...en the Atlantic and the Pacific. Each of these has a free pass in every city and village, 'good for this generation only,' and it depends on each to make use of this pass or not as it may happen to suit his or her fancy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is by a wise economy of nature that those who suffer without change, and whom no one can help, become uninteresting. Yet so it ...may happen that those who need sympathy the most often attract it the least.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them... dead to the quality of things.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For be it remembered that we have not published any ... sentiment without having first ourselves carefully examined it on all side...s. We expect not therefore ... a hasty censure because our opinions may happen to appear new as to some particular points, which our readers may never before have thoroughly examined.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found, I've got a little list--I've got a little list... Of society offenders who might well be underground, And who never would be missed--who never would be missed! There's the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs-- All people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs-- All children who are up in dates, and floor you with 'em flat-- All persons who in shaking hands, shake hands with you like that-- And all third persons who on spoiling tête-à-têtes insist-- They'd none of 'em be missed--they'd none of 'em be missed!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A sudden light transfigures a trivial thing, a weather-vane, a wind-mill, a winnowing flail, the dust in the barn door; a moment,-...-and the thing has vanished, because it was pure effect; but it leaves a relish behind it, a longing that the accident may happen again.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What might be taken for a precocious genius is the genius of childhood. When the child grows up, it disappears without a trace. It... may happen that this boy will become a real painter some day, or even a great painter. But then he will have to begin everything again, from zero.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Marry first, and love will come after is a shocking assertion; since a thousand things may happen to make the state but barely tol...erable, when it is entered into with mutual affection.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It would seem that man was born a slave, and that slavery is his natural condition. At the same time nothing on earth can stop man... from feeling himself born for liberty. Never, whatever may happen, can he accept servitude; for he is a thinking creature.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When mother boasts cheerfully, "Johnny is just crazy about his new little sister. . . . You love her, don't you, dear?" Johnny has...n't much choice but to lie like a gentleman . . . and then he begins to worry that something terrible may happen to little sister. She might get eaten by a stray tiger or fall into a tub of scalding water. . . . It doesn't often occur to that grownup to wonder why tigers and tubs of scalding water are all of a sudden wandering around the house waiting for an unwary moment.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »