Mark Twain

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

I was exceedingly delighted with the waltz, and also with the polka. These differ in name, but there the difference ceases

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.

The secret of culture is to learn, that a few great points steadily reappear.

It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

I have never developed indigestion from eating my words.

The wise man applauds he who he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world applauds the wealthy.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself; nothing, but the triumph of principles.

There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you’ll be free if you truly wish to be.

Errors look so very ugly in persons of small means – one feels they are taking quite a liberty in going astray; whereas people of fortune may naturally indulge in a few delinquencies.

Physically there is nothing to distinguish human society from the farm-yard except that children are more troublesome and costly than chickens and calves and that men and women are not so completely enslaved as farm stock.

A man makes inferiors his superiors by heat; self-control is the rule.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

When many demons are struggling inside you, the one that you feed is the one that will become the strongest. You alone are responsible for what you feed.

Nay, number itself in armies importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for, as Virgil saith, It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.

To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you can not eat.