Mark Twain

What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey.

We have not all had the good fortune to be ladies. We have not all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground.

Virtue has never been as respectable as money.

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.

A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be lead by the nose.

It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.

I don’t think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking theres some kind of change.

Originality is a device that untalented people use to impress other untalented people to protect themselves from talented people…

How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice…

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact. He calls his employment by its lowest name, and so takes from evil tongues their sharpest weapon. His conversation clings to the weather and the news, yet he allows himself to be surprised into thought, and the unlocking of his learning and philosophy.

There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. That little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.

Have wholesome, but not costly Food, and be rather cleanly than dainty in ordering it.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it come to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

The jealous are troublesome to others, but torment to themselves.

You are now fixed at the mercy of no governor that comes to make his fortune great; you shall be governed by laws of your own making and live a free, and if you will, a sober and industrious life. I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his person. God has furnished me with a better resolution and has given me his grace to keep it.

A nap, my friend, is a brief period of sleep which overtakes superannuated persons when they endeavor to entertain unwelcome visitors or to listen to scientific lectures.

Take away the danger and remove the restraint, and wayward nature runs free.

It is a lesson which all history teaches wise men, to put trust in ideas, and not in circumstances.

Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.