“the human soul, by once suffering as much as it is capable of, purchases a strange and terrible immunity to all the rest of life’s sorrows.”

You can put city polish on a man, but by golly, it seems you can’t ever rub it off him.

Spring, summer, autumn, or winter. I wish I had failed as little in other ways.

The idea of perfection always gives one a chance to talk without knowing facts.

There is only one thing about which I shall have no regrets when my life ends.

If a diplomat says yes, he means perhaps. If he says perhaps he means no. And if he says no, he’s the hell of a diplomat.

A country-bred man can always learn to get on with city people, but a town-bred fellah never gets the real hang of the country.

When the desire ain’t on me I don’t need help. When it is on me I don’t want any. See? Like the old fellah that never mended his roof. Said on a wet day he couldn’t do it and on a dry day it was as good as anybody’s.

Burning logs can carry on quite a conversation!

A man who could not accept it and try again was not of the stuff of which leaders are made.

Do you know that the tendrils of graft and corruption have become mighty interlacing roots so that even men who would like to be honest are tripped and trapped by them?

There is still vitality under the winter snow, even though to the casual eye it seems to be dead.

Sunday-evening tea before the fire! I have never missed one moment of beauty, not even taken it for granted.

Have you ever heard apple wood talking? It’s the most loquacious of all. You really can’t get a word in edgeways.

I’ll make me a nice comfortable garment to shut out the heat and the cold,’ and then it ends by becoming a strait-jacket.

I think we foreshorten our own viewpoint if we consider any state of mind, or society, or government as final. Growth and change! We can’t get away from them.

[On religion:] Wasn’t it invented by man for a kind of solace? It’s as though he had said,

Believers in political faith-healing enjoy a supreme immunity from doubt.

A culture is like an immune system. It operates through the laws of systems, just like a body. If a body has an infection, the immune system deals with it. Similarly, a group enforces its norms, either actively or passively.

My immune system has always been overly welcoming of germs. It’s far too polite, the biological equivalent of a southern hostess inviting y’all nice microbes to stay awhile and have some artichoke dip.

Cancer is like a cockroach. It just comes back stronger. I’m tearing apart the immune system of the cockroach and seeing how it ticks. I’ve opened up my own pathology center.

To acquire true self power you have to feel beneath no one, be immune to criticism and be fearless.

Every act of kindness on your part is a boost to your own immune system.

A belly laugh increases the ability of your immune system to fight infections.

Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no state has a right to make any new law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities.