Mark Twain

The report of my death was an exaggeration.

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.

A banker is a fellow who lends his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

The law of God, as quite plainly expressed in woman’s construction, is this: There shall be no limit put upon your intercourse with the other sex sexually, at any time of life. During twenty-three days in every month (in the absence of pregnancy) from the time a woman is seven years old till she dies of old age, she is ready for action, and competent. As competent as the candlestick is to receive the candle. Competent every day, competent every night. Also, she wants that candle – yearns for it, longs for it, hankers after it, as commanded by the law of God in her heart.

Who prays for Satan? Who, in 1,800 years, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerve give to wisdom.

The joy in life is to be used for a purpose. I want to be used up when I die.

There must be what Mr. Gladstone many years ago called a blessed act of oblivion. We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past. We must look to the future. We cannot afford to drag forward across the years that are to come the hatreds and revenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past.

Animals are my friends… and I don’t eat my friends.

If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him.

A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.

When I look back on all the worries I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened.

It is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who spring from us.

In all evils which admits a remedy, impatience should be avoided, because it wastes the time and attention in complaints which, if properly applied, might remove the cause.

All styles are good except the tiresome kind.

He who is only a traveler learns things at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human experience.

Wherever you are, be there totally.

You show your worth by what you seek! – Rumi

All colors will agree in the dark.

Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.

The receipts of cookery are swelled to a volume; but a good stomach excels them all.