Mark Twain

We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove.

When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

It is not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that make horseraces.

He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.

It is better to deserve honours and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them.

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.

Stupidity is the deliberate cultivation of ignorance.

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

I’m beginning to understand myself. But it would have been great to be able to understand myself when I was 20 rather than when I was 82.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Isn’t it amazing how easily you can cheat yourself out of the right choices by convincing yourself that you “deserve” the wrong ones? It’s highly illogical when you think about it. You deserve a better life, you deserve better health, and you deserve to lose weight.

Whatever it is, people who have more spare time than people ever had before get the sense of whirlwind pressure,and repeat the common criticism that ‘we are going too fast.’ Yet the people live longer than ever before, live with less effort, live on a higher plane. Is it possible that this common saying about our rapid pace is just another thoughtless mob suggestion?

If you can find a way to be truly ambivalent about what people think about you as an artist you’re completely freed up because you just end up doing things that turn you on creatively, and then as a person you really try and drown the noise.

Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.

I have my faults, but changing my tune is not one of them.

Nothing’s funnier to me than laughing at myself.

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

I grew up in a very masculine environment. So I was around a lot of men, my brothers and their friends. There was just a lot of guys around.

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.