A book is essentially not a talking thing, but a written thing; and written, not with a view of mere communication, but of permanence.John Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies (1865).
A fine and delicate print of the lines in the skin results, and is permanent, if it doesn't come in contact with something able to rub it off.Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894). Wilson is collecting fingerprints on strips of glass.
As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who gave too much for the whistle.Benjamin Franklin, The Whistle (1779). To give too much for the whistle is to pay more for a thing than it is worth.
As near as I can find out it is an overwhelming, unquenchable gladness for everything that has happened or is going to happen.Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna (1913).
Show all 160 plaintexts (156 more)
Level 1: 10 or more short common words to test, continued
The bar silver is in the north cache; you can find it by the trend of the east hummock, ten fathoms south of the black crag with the face on it.Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883). Directions to buried treasure, written on the back of the map. A cache is a hiding place.
Before the end of the year, I think I began learning that those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (1901).
The brown pot could never be of use to him any more, but he stuck the bits together and propped the ruin in its old place for a memorial.George Eliot, Silas Marner (1861).
Daily it is forced home on the mind of the geologist, that nothing, not even the wind that blows, is so unstable as the level of the crust of this earth.Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle (1839).
The day is perfectly clear, not a cloud or the faintest hint of a cloud is visible, and there is no wind.John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911).
Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind, and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, First Series (1841).
Everything that we learn is the mastery of a difficulty; and the mastery of one helps to the mastery of others.Samuel Smiles, Self Help (1859).
Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a loose misapplication of the word.Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894). From Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar, the sayings that open each chapter.
The eyes of moles and of some burrowing rodents are rudimentary in size, and in some cases are quite covered up by skin and fur.Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859). Rudimentary means small and not fully formed.
The flame shines in darkness, but the light which the diamond has is as nothing until the flame shine upon it, when it is brilliant again.Michael Faraday, The Chemical History of a Candle (1861).
The greater part of the place is in deep shadow, and the walls are stained and tinted by time and weather.Washington Irving, The Sketch-Book (1820).
Have regular hours for work and play, make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well.Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868).
I cannot explain to you how this is done, but it is something like treading water when you are swimming, and hawks do it extremely well.Edith Nesbit, Five Children and It (1902).
I do not know what a sealed book is, because I never saw one, but a sealed book is the expression to use in this connection, because it is popular.Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869).
I ranged mountains and deserts for images and resemblances, and pictured upon my mind every tree of the forest and flower of the valley.Samuel Johnson, Rasselas (1759).
If a thing is right it can be done, and if it is wrong it can be done without; and a good man will find a way.Anna Sewell, Black Beauty (1877).
In a boat, I have always noticed that it is the fixed idea of each member of the crew that he is doing everything.Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat (1889).
In every one of us there is a living process of combustion going on very similar to that of a candle; and I must try to make that plain to you.Michael Faraday, The Chemical History of a Candle (1861).
In the winter, all water which is exposed to the air is colder than springs and wells which are protected from it.Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854).
Jo's eyes sparkled, for it is always pleasant to be believed in, and a friend's praise is always sweeter than a dozen newspaper puffs.Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868).
Money is a needful and precious thing, and when well used, a noble thing, but I never want you to think it is the first or only prize to strive for.Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868).
The night is the winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer.Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854).
Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876).
One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever.Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden (1911).
Sweet is the scent of the hawthorn, and sweet are the bluebells that hide in the valley, and the heather that blows on the hill.Oscar Wilde, The Nightingale and the Rose (1888).
Talk about conceit as much as you like, it is to human character what salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet, and renders it endurable.Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858).
To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of a scholar.Samuel Johnson, Rasselas (1759).
Trees are all different, as you know, and I am sure some tiresome person must have told you that there are no two blades of grass exactly alike.Edith Nesbit, Five Children and It (1902).
We know all about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of the bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster.Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894). From Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar, the sayings that open each chapter.
What tells in life is the whole mind working together, and the deficiencies of any one faculty can be compensated by the efforts of the rest.William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology (1899).
When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865).
When we think of the small creatures that are visible, we are led to think of many that are smaller still and lead us on and on into infinite mystery.John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911).
When you are used to ten hours of solid sleep, to get up three or four times in your sleep-time makes you feel as though you had been up all night.Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children (1906).
You are getting on faster than you think, and I'll take lessons of you in true politeness, for you've learned the secret, I believe.Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868).
You are never entirely in the dark, now; there is always a beacon in sight, either before you, or behind you, or abreast.Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883).
You can't see a snag in one of those shadows, but you know exactly where it is, and the shape of the river tells you when you are coming to it.Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883).
Level 2: 7 to 9 short common words 64
A man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the world.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, First Series (1841).
All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854).
At this time I used to stand in the stable and my coat was brushed every day till it shone like a rook's wing.Anna Sewell, Black Beauty (1877).
Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, First Series (1841).
Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854).
But be assured that the specimen before us appertains to the very simplest species of cryptograph.Edgar Allan Poe, The Gold-Bug (1843). Appertains means belongs. The speaker means a simple substitution cipher.
Certain things are good for nothing until they have been kept a long while; and some are good for nothing until they have been long kept and used.Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858).
Children possess an unestimated sensibility to whatever is deep or high, in imagination or feeling, so long as it is simple likewise.Nathaniel Hawthorne, A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys (1851). From the preface. Sensibility here means the power to feel.
The colts who live here are very good colts, but they are cart-horse colts, and of course they have not learned manners.Anna Sewell, Black Beauty (1877).
The crust of the earth is a vast museum; but the natural collections have been made only at intervals of time immensely remote.Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859).
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). From the preface.
E predominates so remarkably that an individual sentence of any length is rarely seen, in which it is not the prevailing character.Edgar Allan Poe, The Gold-Bug (1843). From the part of the story where a secret message is solved by counting its letters.
Even when the lessons are done, the worst is yet to happen, in the shape of an appalling sum.Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850).
Every little piece of charcoal is burning as a spark, and whilst it so burns it is producing carbonic acid.Michael Faraday, The Chemical History of a Candle (1861). Carbonic acid is the old name for carbon dioxide.
Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858).
The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, First Series (1841).
The gravel-pit is very large and wide, with grass growing round the edges at the top, and dry stringy wildflowers, purple and yellow.Edith Nesbit, Five Children and It (1902).
How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand.Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess (1905).
Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (first published 1791). Felicity means happiness.
I am always of easy faith in such matters, and am ever willing to be deceived where the deceit is pleasant and costs nothing.Washington Irving, The Sketch-Book (1820).
I had no time for verification, no time for selection, no time for anything, for I had no time to spare.Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1861).
I have the finger-prints of the court, the sheriff, and every member of the jury.Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894). Spoken at the trial near the end of the book.
I think any hardship is better than pretending to do what one is paid for, and never really doing it.George Eliot, Middlemarch (1871).
I think that generosity is the essence of friendship, and, besides, I have got a new wheelbarrow for myself.Oscar Wilde, The Devoted Friend (1888). Said by the selfish Miller, who is the joke of the story.
I think the ground is full of daffodils and snowdrops and lilies and iris working their way out of the dark.Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden (1911).
In a short time I and my master understood each other as well as horse and man can do.Anna Sewell, Black Beauty (1877).
In nature every moment is new; the past is always swallowed and forgotten; the coming only is sacred.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, First Series (1841).
The knives given to boys are, for some odd reason, seldom of the kind of steel that keeps sharp.Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children (1906).
Learn the sound qualities of all useful stuffs, and make everything of the best you can get, whatever its price.John Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies (1865).
Little people are apt to feel as if grown folks are so strong and so big, that nothing can possibly happen to them.Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did (1872).
Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone for ever.Samuel Smiles, Self Help (1859). Temperance means not overdoing food or drink.
Moles living in the earth and eating slimy worms are yet as clean as seals or fishes, whose lives are one perpetual wash.John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911).
The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought.Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843).
The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it.Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854).
The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour.Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854).
Most of our metals that we obtain from nature, and work in our shops, are brought at last into a mass by fusion.Michael Faraday, The Chemical History of a Candle (1861). Fusion here means melting.
Most people, I think, are able to draw proper conclusions if they are given the facts in an interesting form on which to base them.Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (1901).
The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.Charles Kingsley, The Water-Babies (1863).
Nature is the incarnation of a thought, and turns to a thought again, as ice becomes water and gas.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Second Series (1844).
The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day.John Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies (1865).
Of great riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution; the rest is but conceit.Francis Bacon, Essays (1625).
The pine and fir cones are growing well, resin and balsam dripping from every tree, and seeds are ripening fast, promising a fine harvest.John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911).
Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.Francis Bacon, Essays (1625). Adversity means hard times.
Robins are not like human beings; their muscles are always exercised from the first and so they develop themselves in a natural manner.Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden (1911).
The sand began to work, and presently a small black bug appeared for a second and then darted under again in a fright.Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876).
Sometimes when one has been extra good for a longer time than usual, one is suddenly attacked by a violent fit of not being good at all.Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children (1906).
The student is to read history actively and not passively; to esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, First Series (1841).
The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth.Herman Melville, Moby Dick (1851).
The sunlight is pinky and yellowy, and all the grass and trees are covered with dew-diamonds.Edith Nesbit, Five Children and It (1902).
The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to manage.Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess (1905).
Though I had lived by the shore all my life, I seemed never to have been near the sea till then.Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883).
To use too many circumstances, ere one come to the matter, is wearisome; to use none at all, is blunt.Francis Bacon, Essays (1625). Ere means before.
Truth, such as is necessary to the regulation of life, is always found where it is honestly sought.Samuel Johnson, Rasselas (1759).
We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us.John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911).
We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field goes through every point of pumpkin history.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Second Series (1844).
We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort.William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology (1899).
We skimmed before it like a bird, the coast of the island flashing by and the view changing every minute.Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883).
We talk of you in the kitchen every night, and wonder what you are saying and doing.Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1861).
Whenever there's a bit of sunshine the brook catches it, and it's always full of sparkles the livelong day.Kate Douglas Wiggin, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903).
Where the thousands upon thousands of bad sailors that swarm in every ship hide themselves when they are on land is a mystery.Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat (1889).
The winds are very boisterous, and the sky almost always clouded: to have a week of fine weather is something wonderful.Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle (1839). Boisterous means rough and stormy.
Wise men know that their business is to examine what is, and not to settle what is not.Charles Kingsley, The Water-Babies (1863).
You can't learn much of it at a time, but every bit you get by heart, makes the next bit easier.Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did (1872).
Your ticket will be inspected every now and then along the route, and when it is time to change cars you will know it.Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869).
Level 3: 6 or fewer short common words 56
A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.Jane Austen, Emma (1815).
A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858).
Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her hands, wondering if anything would ever happen in a natural way again.Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865).
Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth hearing.Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865).
Always, they broke camp in the dark, and the first gray of dawn found them hitting the trail with fresh miles reeled off behind them.Jack London, The Call of the Wild (1903).
Any grown-up persons would tell you that money is hard to get and easy to spend.Edith Nesbit, Five Children and It (1902).
At any rate, it is pleasant to read about whales through their own spectacles, as you may say.Herman Melville, Moby Dick (1851).
Being quite comfortable is a very good thing; but it does not make people good.Charles Kingsley, The Water-Babies (1863).
Bumblebees are here, and are well fed on boundless stores of nectar and pollen.John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911).
The busy people achieve their full share of mischief in the world, you may rely upon it.Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850).
The dogs were tired, the drivers grumbling, and to make matters worse, it snowed every day.Jack London, The Call of the Wild (1903).
Education is for behavior, and habits are the stuff of which behavior consists.William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology (1899).
Every chemical substance, every plant, every animal in its growth, teaches the unity of cause, the variety of appearance.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, First Series (1841).
Every child begins the world again, to some extent, and loves to stay out doors, even in wet and cold.Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854).
Every man is an impossibility until he is born; every thing impossible until we see a success.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Second Series (1844).
Every moment instructs, and every object: for wisdom is infused into every form.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Second Series (1844).
Every moment of the afternoon was full of new things and every hour the sunshine grew more golden.Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden (1911).
Flour is one thing, and friendship is another, and they should not be confused.Oscar Wilde, The Devoted Friend (1888). Said by the selfish Miller, who is the joke of the story.
From every hill slope came the trickle of running water, the music of unseen fountains.Jack London, The Call of the Wild (1903).
The ghostly winter silence had given way to the great spring murmur of awakening life.Jack London, The Call of the Wild (1903).
Gratitude and treachery are merely the two extremities of the same procession.Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894). From Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar, the sayings that open each chapter. Treachery means betraying a trust.
Have you never made the sunshine dance into dark corners, by reflecting it from a bit of looking-glass?Nathaniel Hawthorne, A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys (1851).
I come into the second-best parlour after breakfast, with my books, and an exercise-book, and a slate.Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850).
I should think there are few parts of the world, within the temperate regions, where so much rain falls.Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle (1839).
I think we are scarcely ever so grateful to people as when they help us to get back our own self-esteem.Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did (1872).
I'm sure the woods look sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are getting brown.Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (1871).
If I draw less, I shall read more; if I give up music, I shall take to carpet-work.Jane Austen, Emma (1815).
In an incredibly short time every vestige of the pie had disappeared, and a blissful stickiness pervaded the party.Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did (1872). Vestige means trace.
In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (first published 1791).
In the present instance we see it doubled no less than five times, although the cryptograph is brief.Edgar Allan Poe, The Gold-Bug (1843). The solver has just said that E is often doubled in English, as in meet and seen.
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.Samuel Johnson, Rasselas (1759). Integrity means being honest and fair.
Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (first published 1791).
The level sunbeams are touching the fir-tops, every leaf shining with dew.John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911).
Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars.John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911).
Lizards are glinting about on the hot rocks; some that live near the camp are more than half tame.John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911).
Many bees are parasitic, and always lay their eggs in the nests of bees of other kinds.Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859). A parasitic animal lives at the cost of another.
My impression is, after many years of consideration, that there never can have been anybody in the world who played worse.Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850).
My tooth-brush is a thing that haunts me when I'm travelling, and makes my life a misery.Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat (1889).
My work is easy and pleasant, and I feel my strength and spirits all coming back again.Anna Sewell, Black Beauty (1877).
Not only did they not know how to work dogs, but they did not know how to work themselves.Jack London, The Call of the Wild (1903).
Nothing ever comes to me, that is worth having, except as the result of hard work.Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (1901).
On the window ledge was a jug of wild-flowers, big daisies, and red sorrel, and feathery, flowery grasses.Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children (1906).
People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment.Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess (1905).
Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth.John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859). Palpable to sense means plain to the eye or the hand.
Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art; and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves.William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology (1899).
Some time elapsed before, with all my efforts, I could comprehend my scholars and their nature.Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (1847).
Sometimes I think I never will try poetry, it's so hard to make it come right; and other times it just says itself.Kate Douglas Wiggin, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903).
The sun rose upon a tranquil world, and beamed down upon the peaceful village like a benediction.Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). A benediction is a blessing.
Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously.Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813). Synonymously means as if they meant the same thing.
We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.Samuel Smiles, Self Help (1859).
Whatever facilitates our work is more than an omen; it is a cause of success.Samuel Johnson, Rasselas (1759). Facilitates means makes easier. An omen is a sign of what is coming.
Where gardening is done all sorts of delightful things to eat are turned up with the soil.Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden (1911).
Who can explain why one species ranges widely and is very numerous, and why another allied species has a narrow range and is rare?Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859).
The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them.Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854).
You might as well say that our country's laws are not good because some people break them.Anna Sewell, Black Beauty (1877).
You see, if people knew that dolls could do things, they would make them work.Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess (1905).
How this list was compiled: Every plaintext was matched word for word on 2026-09-19 against the Project Gutenberg plain-text edition of the book it comes from (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/N, where N is): 11 Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; 12 Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass; 46 Dickens, A Christmas Carol; 74 Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; 102 Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson; 113 Burnett, The Secret Garden; 120 Stevenson, Treasure Island; 145 Eliot, Middlemarch; 146 Burnett, A Little Princess; 158 Austen, Emma; 174 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray; 205 Thoreau, Walden; 215 London, The Call of the Wild; 245 Twain, Life on the Mississippi; 271 Sewell, Black Beauty; 308 Jerome, Three Men in a Boat; 498 Wiggin, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm; 514 Alcott, Little Women; 550 Eliot, Silas Marner; 575 Bacon, Essays; 652 Johnson, Rasselas; 751 Holmes, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table; 766 Dickens, David Copperfield; 778 Nesbit, Five Children and It; 902 Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Tales; 935 Smiles, Self Help; 944 Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle; 1018 Kingsley, The Water-Babies; 1228 Darwin, On the Origin of Species; 1260 Bronte, Jane Eyre; 1293 Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies; 1342 Austen, Pride and Prejudice; 1400 Dickens, Great Expectations; 1450 Porter, Pollyanna; 1874 Nesbit, The Railway Children; 2048 Irving, The Sketch-Book; 2147 Poe, The Gold-Bug; 2376 Washington, Up from Slavery; 2701 Melville, Moby Dick; 2944 Emerson, Essays, First Series; 2945 Emerson, Essays, Second Series; 3176 Twain, The Innocents Abroad; 8994 Coolidge, What Katy Did; 14474 Faraday, The Chemical History of a Candle; 16287 James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology; 20203 Franklin, Autobiography (the same edition prints his 1779 letter The Whistle); 32242 Hawthorne, A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys; 32540 Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra; 34901 Mill, On Liberty. Each one is a whole sentence in the author's own words, 60 to 120 letters long, and every author died before 1929. It was checked on the same date that none of them is among the quotes on the cryptogram maker page. The levels are counted, not judged: each plaintext is filed by how many of these 22 short common words it holds (a, I, the, and, of, to, in, is, it, that, as, be, we, or, at, by, for, are, but, not, you, all). Where the name aristocrat comes from: the American Cryptogram Association's own history page, https://www.cryptogram.org/about-the-aca/history/, and its cipher types page, https://www.cryptogram.org/resource-area/cipher-types/, both read on 2026-09-19. The one-line word meanings are our own. Licence: own work
How it works
An aristocrat is a letter-swap cipher that keeps its word breaks and punctuation. This aristocrat cipher practice page deals one of 160 sentences from public domain books, each 60 to 120 letters long, under a new random key in which no letter stands for itself. No letters are given unless you ask for 1 or 2. Solve on screen, or print the puzzle with its answer key.
Read the full guide
What makes a cipher an aristocrat
The name comes from the American Cryptogram Association, formed in 1930, whose founders called the simple substitution cipher the aristocrat of puzzles. Each letter is swapped for another, the same way through the whole text, and spaces and punctuation stay put. Take the spaces out and it becomes a patristocrat, which this page does not set. Every press of New puzzle shuffles a new key, so a sentence you have met before comes back in a different code.
The usual attack, step by step
Count first. In a text of 60 letters or more, the code letter you see most is probably E, with T, A and O close behind. A one-letter word is A or I. A three-letter word that turns up twice is a good bet for THE, and AND is the next to test. After an apostrophe, try S or T. Type a guess in any box and every box with that code letter fills in. A wrong guess soon shows as a word that cannot be English.
Levels, help and the printed sheet
The list under the tool files all 160 sentences in 3 levels by a count of short common words such as THE, OF and IT. Level 1 has 10 or more, Level 2 has 7 to 9 and Level 3 has 6 or fewer. New puzzle draws from all three, unsolved sentences first. Check marks wrong letters, and Hint gives the most common letter you have not found. Print puzzle makes a Letter or A4 sheet with a name and date line and an A to Z tracker grid. The answer key prints on a second page unless you untick Print the answer key too.
Tally the code letters before you guess anything. On paper, write the counts in the margin beside the tracker grid.
Look at word shapes. A four-letter word that starts and ends with the same code letter is often THAT, and a three-letter word ending in a doubled letter is often ALL, SEE or TOO.
No letter stands for itself, so a code letter Q can never be Q. The tool refuses such a guess, and the rule settles close calls.
Under Letters given at the start, press 2. Drop to 1 when your solves are steady, then to 0.
For a team, press Share and send the link. Everyone gets the same sentence under the same key, with empty boxes. To encode a sentence you chose, use the cryptogram maker.
Questions and answers
What is an aristocrat cipher?
It is a simple substitution cipher printed with its word divisions. The 26 letters are shuffled into a secret key, and each letter of the message is replaced by its partner, the same one every time. It is not a fixed shift along the alphabet, so you solve it from letter counts, short words and word shapes. Newspapers call the same puzzle a cryptogram.
How is an aristocrat different from a patristocrat?
Only in the layout. An aristocrat keeps the spaces between words and the punctuation, so one-letter words, apostrophes and word lengths are all there to use. A patristocrat is the same cipher with the word spacing and punctuation taken out, which leaves little but letter counts and common letter pairs.
How should I use this page for aristocrat practice?
Solve 2 or 3 puzzles a day and time yourself with a clock or a phone, because the page has no timer. The counter under the puzzle shows how many of the 160 you have solved. It is kept in this browser, and an unfinished puzzle is offered again when you come back.
Does the key use a keyword?
No. Every key here is a random shuffle of the alphabet, made fresh for each puzzle, with the one rule that no letter stands for itself. Some puzzle setters build the key from a keyword, which a sharp solver can rebuild. This page does not make keyed alphabets.
Where do the sentences come from?
All 160 are whole sentences by 36 authors who died before 1929, among them Thoreau, Twain, Darwin, Nesbit and Muir, each matched word for word against its Project Gutenberg text on 2026-09-19 and read with young solvers in mind. Three come from Poe's The Gold-Bug of 1843, a story about cracking this very cipher. The full list under the tool is also the answer list, so do not scroll down in the middle of a puzzle.