Mark Twain

Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thought that is forever flowing through one’s head.

Classic – A book which people praise and don’t read.

Unconsciously we all have a standard by which we measure other men, and if we examine closely we find that this standard is a very simple one, and is this: we admire them, we envy them, for great qualities we ourselves lack. Hero worship consists in just that. Our heroes are men who do things which we recognize, with regret, and sometimes with a secret shame, that we cannot do. We find not much in ourselves to admire, we are always privately wanting to be like somebody else. If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.

Of the delights of this world, man cares most for sexual intercourse. He will go to any length for it-risk fortune, character, reputation, life itself.

Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.

When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

Say a word, say a thousand to me on the telephone and I shall choose the wrong one to cling to as though you had said it after long deliberation when only I provoked it from you, I will cling to it from among a thousand, to be provoked and hurl it back with something I mean no more than you meant that, something for you to cling to and retreat clinging to.

Goodness is the only investment which never fails.

The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man’s body.

To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.

Are you using your pain as an excuse or as a source of strength?

Tread softly, Breathe peacefully, Laugh hysterically.

Failure is success if we learn from it.

Pleasure that is obtained by unreasonable and unsuitable cost, must always end in pain.

Letters are like wine; if they are sound they ripen with keeping. A man should lay down letters as he does a cellar of wine.

You will find only what you bring in.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

There can be no friendship where there is no freedom. Friendship loves a free air, and will not be fenced up in straight and narrow enclosures.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.