Mark Twain

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.

Out of the unconscious lips of babes and sucklings are we satirized.

It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.

In Nevada, for a time, the lawyer, the editor, the banker, the chief desperado, the chief gambler, and the saloon-keeper occupied the same level of society, and it was the highest.

If I were required to guess off-hand, and without collusion with higher minds, what is the bottom cause of the amazing material and intellectual advancement of the last fifty years, I should guess that it was the modern-born and previously non-existent disposition on the part of men to believe that a new idea can have value.

Sir, a man may be so much of everything, that he is nothing of anything.

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

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.

Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.

Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.

I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

I must first know myself, as the Delphian inscription says; to be curious about that which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own self, would be ridiculous. And therefore I bid farewell to all this; the common opinion is enough for me. For, as I was saying, I want to know not about this, but about myself: am I a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a creature of a gentler and simpler sort, to whom Nature has given a diviner and lowlier destiny?

I could not find the world if I searched ten years. I’ve forgotten the road by which I came.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses.

Good breeding, a union of kindness and independence.

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.

The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.