Mark Twain

“ Now, one of the worst things about civilization is that anybody that gits a letter with trouble in it comes and tells you all about it, and makes you feel bad, and the newspapers fetches you the troubles of everybody all over the world, and keeps you down hearted and dismal 'most all the time, and it's such a heavy load for a person. ”

“ Because when a person knows how to use his eyes, everything has got a meaning to it; but most people's eyes ain't any good to them. I knowed a camel had been along, because I seen his track. I knowed he was lame in his off hind leg because he had favored that foot and trod light on it, and his track showed it. ”

“ They've been learnt to do all sorts of hard and troublesome things. S'pose you could cultivate a flea up to the size of a man, and keep his natural smartness a-growing and a-growing right along up, bigger and bigger, and keener and keener, in the same proportion—where'd the human race be, do you reckon? That flea would be President of the United States, and you couldn't any more prevent it than you can prevent lightning."
"My lan', Mars Tom! ”

“ There's more to him, by a long sight, than there is to any other cretur, man or beast, in proportion to size. He's the interestingest of them all. People have so much to say about an ant's strength, and an elephant's, and a locomotive's. ”

“ Of course, then I had to come out and make a clean breast, and say it did seem to me too, same as it did to Jim, that as long as the tale stopped square in the middle, and never got to no place, it really warn't worth the trouble of telling.
Tom's chin dropped on his breast, and 'stead of being mad, as I reckoned he'd be, to hear me scoff at his tale that way, he seemed to be only sad; and he says:
"Some people can see, and some can't—just as that man said. Let alone a camel, if a cyclone had gone by, you duffers wouldn't 'a' noticed the track." ”

“ Jim said he reckoned a balloon was a good deal the fastest thing in the world, unless it might be some kinds of birds—a wild pigeon, maybe, or a railroad.
But Tom said he had read about railroads in England going nearly a hundred miles an hour for a little ways, and there never was a bird in the world that could do that, except one—and that was a flea.
"A flea? Why, Mars Tom, in de fust place he ain't a bird, strickly speakin'—"
"He ain't a bird, ain't he? ”

“ They've got ever so much more sense, and brains, and brightness, in proportion to their size, than any other cretur in the world. A person can learn them 'most anything; and they learn it quicker than any other cretur, too. ”

“ Well, suppose a man could go fifteen hundred times his own length in a second—say, a mile and a half. It's ninety miles a minute; it's considerable more than five thousand miles an hour. Where's your man now?—yes, and your bird, and your railroad, and your balloon? Laws! they don't amount to shucks 'longside of a flea. A flea is just a comet b'iled down small."
Jim was a good deal astonished, and so was I. Jim said:
"Is dem figgers jist edjackly true, en no jokin' en no lies, Mars Tom?" ”