Mark Twain

An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I’ve dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half… I never write metropolis for seven cents, because I can get the same money for city. I never write policeman, because I can get the same price for cop…. I never write valetudinarian at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn’t do it for fifteen.

When in doubt tell the truth.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

Work like you don’t need the money, love like you’ve never been hurt, and dance like nobody is watching.

The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity.

Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.

My love for you was like a poem I wrote; one that I disregarded as average. Torn out, thrown away to the rubbish heap, waiting; wishing to be picked up and appreciated by someone else, for the masterpiece that it is.

Eat therefore to live, and do not live to eat.

A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Some men are born to own, and can animate all their possessions. Others cannot: their owning is not graceful; seems to be a compromise of their character: they seem to steal their own dividends.

Nothing is beneath you if it is in the direction of your life.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

Let him that would move the world, first move himself.

To be innocent is to be not guilty; but to be virtuous is to overcome our evil inclinations.

Where God does not govern, tyrants will rule.

No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by drinkers of water.

Words are finite organs of the infinite mind. They cannot cover the dimensions of what is in truth. They break, chop, and impoverish it.

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

When setting out on a journey, do not seek advice from those who have never left home.

We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.