If a jury in a criminal trial stays out for more than twenty-four hours, it is certain to vote acquittal, save in those instances where it votes guilty.

By the middle 1880's, practically all the roads except those in the South, were of the present standard gauge. The southern roads were still five feet between rails. It was decided to change the gauge of all southern roads to standard, in one day

If reporters don't know that truth is plural, they ought to be lawyers.

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so.

It is sweet to let the mind unbend on occasion.

Turn the other cheek.

Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.

Any road followed to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little to test it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.

Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.

But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal education and lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in 1877, was the phonograph, which could soo

Necessity hath no law.

I go on working for the same reason a hen goes on laying eggs.

If I cannot bend Heaven, I shall move Hell.

Fourteen years in the professor dodge has taught me that one can argue ingeniously on behalf of any theory, applied to any piece of literature. This is rarely harmful, because normally no-one reads such essays.

Home is where the hurt is.

One of your most ancient writers, a historian named Herodotus, tells of a thief who was to be executed. As he was taken away he made a bargain with the king: in one year he would teach the king's favorite horse to sing hymns. The other prisoners wa

He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news.

Every young man should have a hobby: learning how to handle money is the best one.

General notions are generally wrong.

Events are not affected, they develop.

What excuses stand in your way? How can you eliminate them?

Look ere ye leap.

God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.

Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.

Don't guess

If a fool persists in his folly he shall become wise.

The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go to erase it.

By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve.

A snake lurks in the grass.

Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.

Men will fuck mud.

Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore,

Just remember, wherever you go, there you are.

One good turn asketh another.

Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.

Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?

Not to laugh, not to lament, not to curse, but to understand.

It is so stupid of modern civilisation to have given up believing in the devil when he is the only explanation of it.

Here's to women. Would that we could fall into her arms without falling into her hands.

Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made.

I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.

If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

He who writes with no misspelled words has prevented a first suspicion on the limits of his scholarship or, in the social world, of his general education and culture.

A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved.

Women of genius commonly have masculine faces, figures and manners. In transplanting brains to an alien soil God leaves a little of the original earth clinging to the roots.

If I were a grave-digger or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.

Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity.

A highly intelligent man should take a primitive woman. Imagine if on top of everything else, I had a woman who interfered with my work.

Sometimes, too long is too long.

A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.