Mark Twain

The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.

The report of my death was an exaggeration.

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It’s like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won’t fatten the dog.

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

Truth is neither alive nor dead; it just aggravates itself all the time.

France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.

Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

Your fingers caress my heart strings, shaping a silent sonnet in notes of love. Transcending space and time, bathing the ether in perfect harmony.

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

Is life worth living? This is a question for an embryo not for a man.

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.

You and I are essentially infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices.

Those who cross the sea change only the climate, not their character.

The worst of charity is that the lives you are asked to preserve are not worth preserving.

All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

In heaven an angel is no one in particular.

One lesson we learn early, that in spite of seeming difference, men are all of one pattern. We readily assume this with our mates, and are disappointed and angry if we find that we are premature, and that their watches are slower than ours. In fact, the only sin which we never forgive in each other is difference of opinion.