Mark Twain

If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.

When in doubt tell the truth.

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.

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It’s like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won’t fatten the dog.

Just the omission of Jane Austen’s books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn’t a book in it.

Duties are not performed for duty’s sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty -the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself.

I’d like to devote about three years to the elimination of the cow. There’s not reason in the world why the chemist can’t discover the cow’s secret of converting vegetation into dairy products. And there’s less reason why the chemist can’t do a better job of it after he learns how.

Cat: a pygmy lion who loves mice, hates dogs, and patronizes human beings.

One dog barks at something. And a hundred dogs bark at the sound.

All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

Just because an animal is large, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want kindness; however big Tigger seems to be, remember that he wants as much kindness as Roo.

The more I learn about people, the better I like my dog.

By what right has the dog come to be regarded as a noble animal? The more brutal and cruel and unjust you are to him the more your fawning and adoring slave he becomes; whereas, if you shamefully misuse a cat once she will always maintain a dignified reserve toward you afterward-you will never get her full confidence again.

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

Cats are smarter than dogs. You can not get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending, he turned into a butterfly.

Don’t ever wrestle with a pig. You’ll both get dirty, but the pig will enjoy it.

Are cats lazy? Well, more power to them if they are. Which one of us has not entertained the dream of doing just as he likes, when and how he likes, and as much as he likes?

It is much easier to show compassion to animals. They are never wicked.

Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.

The more I know about people, the more I like dogs. I simply like animals.