Mark Twain

It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.

It is a time when one’s spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death.

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

There isn’t a single human characteristic that can be safely labeled as American.

We never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead – and not then until we have been dead years and years. People ought to start dead and then they would be honest so much earlier.

Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.

Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity to act despite our fears.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.

The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace.

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.

I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way (s)he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.

Be not simply good – be good for something.

Fatigue makes cowards of us all.

Stress is caused by being here but wanting to be there.

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same kind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

Suspicion amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they never fly by twilight.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.