I have no special regard for Satan; but, I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English, it is un-American; it is French.
I'll risk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county.
I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo, that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, great in every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast, for luncheon, for dinner, for tea, for supper, for between meals. I like a change, occasionally.
An injurious lie is an uncommendable thing; and so, also, and in the same degree, is an injurious truth, a fact that is recognized by the law of libel.
He is a stranger to me, but he is a most remarkable man, and I am the other one. Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known, and I know the rest.
I wish to come down eighteen hundred years later and refer to a remark made by one of the Latin historians. Some Christians were persecuted in Rome through error, they being'mistaken for Jews. ' The meaning seems plain. These pagans had nothing against Christians, but they were quite ready to persecute Jews. For some reason or other they hated a Jew before they even knew what a Christian was. May I not assume, then, that the persecution of Jews is a thing which antedates Christianity and was not born of Christianity?
I started out alone to seek adventures. You don't really have to seek them, that is nothing but a phrase, they come to you.
Brooklyn praise is half slander.
Customs do not concern themselves with right or wrong or reason. But they have to be obeyed; one reasons all around them until he is tired, but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden.
The Jew has his other side. He has some discreditable ways, though he has not a monopoly of them. He has a reputation for various small forms of cheating, and for practicing oppressive usury, and for burning himself out to get the insurance, and for arranging cunning contracts which leave him an exit but lock the other man in, and for smart evasions which find him safe and comfortable just within the strict letter of the law, when court and jury know very well that he has violated the spirit of it.