"Cities degrade us by magnifying trifles...." - Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Marriage is the perfection which love aimed at, ignorant of what it sought.”

“In old persons, when thus fully expressed, we often observe a fair, plump, perennial waxen complexion, which indicates that all the ferment of earlier days has subsided into serenity of thought and behavior.”

“To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty.”

“I have at last, after several months' experience, made up my mind that [New York] is a splendid desert--a domed and steepled solitude, where the stranger is lonely in the midst of a million of his race.”

“If the Earth were a single state, Istanbul would be its capital.”

“New York is a sucked orange. All conversation is at an end, when we have discharged ourselves of a dozen personalities, domestic or imported, which make up our American existence.”

“No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, there can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.”

“Art moves. Hence its civilizing power.”

“If you meet at dinner a man who has spent his life in educating himself - a rare type in our time ... you rise from table richer, and conscious that a high ideal has for a moment touched and sanctified your days. But Oh! my dear Ernest, to sit next to a man who has spent his life in trying to educate others! What a dreadful experience that is!”