Mark Twain

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.

Adam was but human-this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple’s sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.

I think a compliment ought to always precede a complaint, where one is possible, because it softens resentment and insures for the complaint a courteous and gentle reception.

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.

You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.

I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

Dare to think for yourself.

If he really thinks there is no distinction between vice and virtue, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.

It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not a winner.

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.

What could we accomplish if we knew we could not fail?

The only secrets are the secrets that keep themselves.

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but religiously follows the new.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

I know of no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that of tenacity of purpose.

Trust instinct to the end, even though you can give no reason.

I teach that all men are mad.

Those who trust us educate us.

Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I am thinking.