Mark Twain

The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder’s moral perceptions are known and conceded the world over; and a priveleged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name.

If you have to eat a frog, don’t look at it for too long.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics.

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.

What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.

The lack of money is the root of all evils.

What if… everything you are going through is preparing you for what you asked for?

You’ve got to have a good spirit on the inside. That’s what’s really going to make you look like you’re ready to rock the world.

If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use the pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time; a tremendous whack.

Why is that others have so much faith in me, while I have so little? Why can’t I have the same belief in me that they have? Why can’t I see in myself, what they do? What is it that makes me, hold myself back? How many more hurdles do I need to overcome? There are so many questions that I have to find the answers to. And I will only find them by focusing and being completely honest with myself.

The roses under my window make no reference to former roses or better ones; they are what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.

Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.

Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.

Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.

I said there was nothing so convincing to an Indian as a general massacre. If he could not approve of the massacre, I said the next surest thing for an Indian was soap and education. Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run; because a half-massacred Indian may recover, but if you educate him and wash him, it is bound to finish him some time or other.

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, an they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

Look to make your course regular, that men may know beforehand what they may expect.

A true friend freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.

Men are respectable only as they respect.

Virtue is too often merely local.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.