Mark Twain

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.

The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.

The miracle, or the power, that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application, and perseverance under the prompting of a brave, determined spirit.

It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.

If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

I do not hesitate to read all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable – any real insight or broad human sentiment.

It all depends on you. You can go on sleeping forever, you can wake up right this moment.

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.

In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.

A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razor strap. A thin book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.

An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.

There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.

Not to be provok’d is best: But if mov’d, never correct till the Fume is spent; For every Stroke our Fury strikes, is sure to hit our selves at last.

Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow.

Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.

He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father’s wisdom than he who has a great deal left to him owes to his father’s care.

I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology.

Esther liked books out where everyone could see them, a sort of graphic index to the intricate labyrinth of her mind arrayed to impress the most casual guest, a system of immediate introduction which she had found to obtain in a number of grimy intellectual households in Greenwich Village.