Mark Twain

I refused to attend his funeral. But I wrote a very nice letter explaining that I approved of it.

A monarch, when good, is entitled to the consideration which we accord to a pirate who keeps Sunday School between crimes; when bad, he is entitled to none at all.

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

There is no distinctly American criminal class – except Congress.

What you do makes a difference. And you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

Every person is a God in embryo. Its only desire is to be born.

If a man will kick a fact out of the window, when he comes back he finds it again in the chimney corner.

What contemptible scoundrel has stolen the cork to my lunch?

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience!

Common sense is the best distributed thing in the world, for we all think we possess a good share of it.

We are wiser than we know.

Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.

The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars.

No man acquires property without acquiring with it a little arithmetic also.

Strivers achieve what dreamers believe.

You show your worth by what you seek! – Rumi

England and America are two countries separated by the same language.

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.