Mark Twain

Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.

Hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon morals, politics or religion which he got otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly speaking, there are none but corn-pone opinions. And broadly speaking, Corn-Pone stands for Self-Approval. Self-approval is acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is Conformity.

If you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes.

What is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man’s breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked; that you are beholding what human eye has not seen before; that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To give birth to an idea, to discover a great thought – an intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a field that many a brain-plough had gone over before. To find a new planet, to invent a new hinge, to find a way to make the lightning carry your messages. To be the first – that is the idea.

Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.

Obscurity and competence: That is the life that is worth living.

There is only one universal passion fear.

There’s an old German proverb to the effect that fear makes the wolf bigger than he is,and that is true.

Fear is a useless emotion. Don’t ever make decisions based on fear. Make decisions based on hope and possibility.

Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.

Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.

In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn’t know what he is doing.

My greatest fear is getting bored.

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absense of fear.

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.

I am pretty fearless. You know why? Because I don’t handle fear very well; I’m not a good terrified person.

Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Don’t be afraid of fear. Because it sharpens you, it challenges you, it makes you stronger; and when you run away from fear, you also run away from the opportunity to be your best possible self.

Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.