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

Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them.

The two party system ... is a triumph of the dialectic. It showed that two could be one and one could be two and had probably been fabricated by Hegel for the American market on a subcontract from General Dynamics.

May you live in uninteresting times.

Age before beauty; and pearls before swine.

Freedom is nothing else but the chance to do better.

The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur.

Its name is Public Opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it is the voice of God.

The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven; The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change. These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.

Better the prince of some inferior court, Than second, or less, in beatific light.

The last vestiges of the old Republic have been swept away.

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

If it were thought that anything I wrote was influenced by Robert Frost, I would take that particular work of mine, shred it, and flush it down the toilet, hoping not to clog the pipes. A more sententious, holding- forth old bore who expected every

You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"

If there were a school for, say, sheet metal workers, that after three years left its graduates as unprepared for their careers as does law school, it would be closed down in a minute, and no doubt by lawyers.

All I know is what the words know, and dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning and a middle and an end, as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead.

With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter.

Roumanian-Yiddish cooking has killed more Jews than Hitler.

The life which is unexamined is not worth living.

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

"Do you think there's a God?" "Well, ____SOMEbody's out to get me!"

Show business is just like high school, except you get paid.

Sorry 'bout that sweat, honey. That's just holy water.

When you say that you agree to a thing in principle, you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.

Murray and Esther, a middle-aged Jewish couple, are touring Chile. Murray just got a new camera and is constantly snapping pictures. One day, without knowing it, he photographs a top-secret military installation. In an instant, armed troops surroun

Have the courage to take your own thoughts seriously, for they will shape you.

Then there's the story of the man who avoided reality for 70 years with drugs, sex, alcohol, fantasy, TV, movies, records, a hobby, lots of sleep... And on his 80th birthday died without ever having faced any of his real problems. The man's young

"World conquerors sometimes become fools, but fools never become world conquerors."

She say, Miss Colie, You better hush. God might hear you. Let 'im hear me, I say. If he ever listened to poor colored women the world would be a different place, I can tell you.

Facts, apart from their relationships, are like labels on empty bottles.

"We maintain that the very foundation of our way of life is what we call free enterprise," said Cash McCall, "but when one of our citizens show enough free enterprise to pile up a little of that profit, we do our best to make him feel that he ought t

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom for trying to change the system from within. I'm coming now I'm coming to reward them. First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin. I'm guided by a signal in the heavens. I'm guided by this birthmark

We are not a loved organization, but we are a respected one.

War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military.

It is right that he too should have his little chronicle, his memories, his reason, and be able to recognize the good in the bad, the bad in the worst, and so grow gently old all down the unchanging days and die one day like any other day, only short

He is now rising from affluence to poverty.

He who renders warfare fatal to all engaged in it will be the greatest benefactor the world has yet known.

Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know.

... Let me tell you who the actual "front-runners" are. On one side, you have George Bush, who is currently going through a sort of fraternity hazing wherein he has to perform a series of humiliating stunts to win the approval of the Republican Righ