Mark Twain

It is nobler to be good, and it is nobler to teach others to be good – and less trouble!

We had the sky up there, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss whether they was made or just happened.

Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain’t that a big enough majority in any town?

When in doubt tell the truth.

Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.

In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.

It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.

The world is his who has money to go over it.

Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.

It is only through labour and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage; that we move on to better things.

Republics abound in young civilians who believe that the laws make the city, that grave modifications of the policy and modes of living and employments of the population, that commerce, education and religion may be voted in or out; and that any measure, though it were absurd, may be imposed on a people if only you can get sufficient voices to make it a law. But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow and not lead the character and progress of the citizen; that the form of government which prevails is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it. The law is only a memorandum.

In conversation the game is, to say something new with old words. And you shall observe a man of the people picking his way along, step by step, using every time an old boulder, yet never setting his foot on an old place.

If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.

It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

Neither have they hearts to stay, nor wit enough to run away.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.

I heartily accept the motto,That government is best which governs least; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.

He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.