Mark Twain

There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are.

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

He is now rising from affluence to poverty.

Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large defect in your race – the individual’s distrust of his neighbor, and his desire, for safety’s or comfort’s sake, to stand well in his neighbor’s eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish, and always oppress you, affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where the majority of the people were in their secret hearts loyal to any of these institutions.

Do something every day that you don’t want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.

Tell me anyway–Maybe I can find the truth by comparing the lies.

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.

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

Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.

There are only two ways of telling the complete truth–anonymously and posthumously.

Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.

The honest truth is that every day was new, every day was a challenge, every day was starting from a fresh place, and as time went on, over the course of about two years, things became better and better. But I don’t think that there was for me anything like, ‘Ah, this is taking too long’, because ‘long’ didn’t exist. So I see it as a blessing. I have to laugh. I mean there’s no other way to look at it.

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

When in doubt tell the truth.

To tell the truth is very difficult, and young people are rarely capable of it.

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.

Lying rides upon debt’s back.

Truth isn’t truth.

Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.

Do not seek the truth, only cease to cherish your opinions.