Mark Twain

What, then, is the true Gospel of consistency? Change. Who is the really consistent man? The man who changes. Since change is the law of his being, he cannot be consistent if he stick in a rut.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.

The master minds of all nations, in all ages, have sprung in affluent multitude from the mass of the nation, and from the mass of the nation only – not from its privileged classes.

Don’t say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.

I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.

Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal.

The secret of culture is to learn, that a few great points steadily reappear.

Softness has such a power to it. When you choose to soften into something, it relaxes, opens, tension releases. Stuck energy flows like blood coursing through veins, bringing much needed oxygen. Life force and warmth enters, connection is rekindled. Find the trust you need to allow softness in; it really is healing.

In the long run you hit only what you aim at. Therefore, though you should fail immediately, you had better aim at something high.

God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.

That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another s. We see so much only as we possess.

Use every distraction as an object of meditation and they cease to be distractions.

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

Philosophers make imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as the stars, which give little light because they are so high.

Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.

The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.

I shall not wholly die, and a great part of me will escape the grave.