Mark Twain

History is strewn thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill, but a lie, well told, is immortal.

In statesmanship get the formalities right, never mind about the moralities.

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

Write without pay until somebody offers to pay you. If nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for.

The lack of money is the root of all evils.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.

Willpower is a myth. The problem with trying to use willpower to achieve and sustain a behavioral change is that it is fueled by emotion. And as we all know, our emotions are, at best, fickle. They come and go. When your emotions start running down — and they will — even your best-laid plans will fall flat.

Life can’t be all that bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years.

Idleness is the reason for many of our troubles.

Work like you don’t need the money, love like you’ve never been hurt, and dance like nobody is watching.

All this is only for the mice and myself to admire!

I beg you take courage; the brave soul can mend even disaster.

[on Diana’s Death] Disbelief, refused to accept it.

I ask you to go back and read them over again, and this time answer “Self-acceptance was the foundation of the happiest time in your life and it was the engine that powered the train.

It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possesion of the truth.

Courage is grace under pressure.

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

I’m beginning to understand myself. But it would have been great to be able to understand myself when I was 20 rather than when I was 82.

Life is an improvisation. You have no idea what’s going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along.

Sometimes when reading Goethe I have the paralyzing suspision that he is trying to be funny.

People who have nothing to hide, hide nothing. You should be an open book, be transparent.