Mark Twain

It is difference of opinion that makes horse races.

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.

We like a man to come right out and say what he thinks, if we agree with him.

I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

Adam was but human-this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple’s sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.

Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.

Our own life has to be our message.

Wisdom begins in wonder.

The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.

The reason why men do not obey us is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.

Haste makes Work which Caution prevents.

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.

If you do not take control over your time and your life, other people will gobble it up. If you don’t prioritize yourself, you constantly start falling lower and lower on your list.

Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you who you’ll turn out to be.

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.

To be mature you have to realize what you value most… Not to arrive at a clear understanding of one’s own values is a tragic waste. You have missed the whole point of what life is for.

The test of a man or woman’s breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.