Mark Twain

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.

A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.

A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law.

Man is the only animal that blushes – or needs to.

Man is a shrewd inventor, and is ever taking the hint of a new machine from his own structure, adapting some secret of his own anatomy in iron, wood, and leather, to some required function in the work of the world.

People ignore the thing they have the most power over. I know so many people who will go to a protest and do something big on an issue. But they won’t deal with that issue in their home.

Whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

Sobriety, severity, and self-respect are the foundations of all true sociality.

If we don’t occupy ourself with everything, then peaceful mind will have nowhere to abide.

Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.

Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover.

There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.

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.

Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.

Some men do as much begrudge others a good name, as they want one themselves: and perhaps that is the reason of it.

There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly tends to convert itself into power.

Nothing is more important than reconnecting with your bliss. Nothing is as rich. Nothing is more real.