Mark Twain

No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the presence of ladies.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it – and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again – and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.

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

There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.

There are no people who are quite so vulgar as the over-refined.

Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive.

The greatest homage we can pay truth is to use it.

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.

And all the while I thought I was drowning, I was actually the one holding my head under the water.

Plain question and plain answer make the shortest road out of most perplexities.

Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

Painting was called silent poetry and poetry speaking painting.

You don’t create things, you discover things.

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.

I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.

It is of no consequence of what parents a man is born, as long as he be a man of merit.

The laws of each are convertible into the laws of any other.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself, and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.

A hen is only a egg’s way of making another egg.