“The essence of humor is that it should be unexpected, that it should embody an element of surprise, that it should startle us out of that reasonable gravity which, after all, must be our habitual frame of mind.”

No rural community, no suburban community, can ever possess the distinctive qualities that city dwellers have for centuries given to the world.

The English possess too many agreeable traits to permit them to be as much disliked as they think and hope they are.

There was no escape from the letter-writer who, a hundred or a hundred and twenty-five years ago, captured a coveted correspondent. It would have been as easy to shake off an octopus or a boa-constrictor.

Like simplicity and candor, and other much-commented qualities, enthusiasm is charming until we meet it face to face, and cannot escape from its charm.

The thinkers of the world should by rights be guardians of the world’s mirth.

The most charming thing about youth is the tenacity of its impressions.

Letter-writing on the part of a busy man or woman is the quintessence of generosity.

There is no illusion so permanent as that which enables us to look backward with complacency; there is no mental process so deceptive as the comparing of recollections with realities.

The vanity of man revolts from the serene indifference of the cat.

In those happy days when leisure was held to be no sin, men and women wrote journals whose copiousness both delights and dismays us.

Our belief in education is unbounded, our reverence for it is unfaltering, our loyalty to it is unshaken by reverses. Our passionate desire, not so much to acquire it as to bestow it, is the most animated of American traits.

It is difficult to admonish Frenchmen. Their habit of mind is unfavorable to preachment.

If everybody floated with the tide of talk, placidity would soon end in stagnation. It is the strong backward stroke which stirs the ripples, and gives animation and variety.

People with theories of life are, perhaps, the most relentless of their kind, for no time or place is sacred from their devastating elucidations.

The impulse to travel is one of the hopeful symptoms of life.

the labors of the true critic are more essential to the author, even, than to the reader.

There is an element of mystique to radio, and I often listen to cricket commentary on radio, especially when one is stuck in a traffic jam.

Contentment is not happiness. An oyster may be contented. Happiness is compounded of richer elements.

A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.

I’m interested in pressure, I’m interested in duress. All the great works of art, or film or literature, in my opinion, have elements of those in them.

It’s not the elements of our worship that are awesome. It’s the object of our worship Who is awesome.

The jazz I love is sweet and pure with raw elements, which is exactly what the good hip-hop is doing now.

The human element of making music is what’s most important.

The earth should not be injured. The earth should not be destroyed. As often as the elements, the elements of the world are violated by ill treatment, so God will cleanse them thru the sufferings, thru the hardships of mankind.