“The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man’s.”

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.

In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.

Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.

Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.

Obscurity and a competence – that is the life that is best worth living.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

There’s one way to find out if a man is honest: ask him; if he says yes, you know he’s crooked.

My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.

Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

Any woman who does not thoroughly enjoy tramping across the country on a clear frosty morning with a good gun and a pair of dogs does not know how to enjoy life.

On the one hand, I want to go off and live in the desert with my dog and sculpt things out of adobe.

Inside of me there are two dogs. One is mean and evil and the other is good and they fight each other all the time. When asked which one wins I answer, the one I feed the most.

Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this – no dog exchanges bones with another.

I do not wish to be shut up in a corral. All agency Indians I have seen are worthless. They are neither red warriors nor white farmers. They are neither wolf nor dog.

Aristocrats have heirs; the poor have children; the rest keep dogs.

You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks. Better we keep biscuits and go.

The serpent, the king, the tiger, the stinging wasp, the small child, the dog owned by other people, and the fool: these seven ought not to be awakened from sleep.