Mark Twain

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation.

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

There is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought -a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered – either by themselves or by others.

Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.

A man is a god in ruins.

If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society, for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference.

Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

Whom do I call educated? First, those who manage well the circumstances they encounter day by day. Next, those who are decent and honorable in their intercourse with all men, bearing easily and good naturedly what is offensive in others and being as agreeable and reasonable to their associates as is humanly possible to be… those who hold their pleasures always under control and are not ultimately overcome by their misfortunes… those who are not spoiled by their successes, who do not desert their true selves but hold their ground steadfastly as wise and sober — minded men.

Wisdom begins in wonder.

Labor, if it were not necessary for existence, would be indispensable for the happiness of man.

Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind and in contradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of an individual.

It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.

If a man owns land, the land owns him.

It’s them as take advantage that get advantage I this world.

Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.

Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed.

There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find an Englishman doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles.