Mark Twain

In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.

The most difficult We do not deal in facts when we are contemplating ourselves.

Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.

I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.

All you need to be a success is ignorance and self confidence.

A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.

Thus, by every device from the stick to the carrot, the emaciated Austrian donkey is made to pull the Nazi barrow up an ever-steepening hill.

Clever tyrants are never punished.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I went to the Bach Choir concert and heard Mozart’s Requiem. I did not rise warmly to it. Then I heard an extract from Parsifal which I disliked very much. If Bach wriggles, Wagner writhes…

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

Dharma is what the Buddha taught. It is the way of understanding and love-how to understand, how to love, how to make understanding and love into real things.

Don’t try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.

To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so long life;

Nothing is too high for the daring of mortals: we storm heaven itself in our folly.

If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.

Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere.

I’ve also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you but his eyes stay the same. It’s sure to be a phony.

He liked to like people, therefore people liked him.

I have received no more than one or two letters in my life that were worth the postage.

Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.