Mark Twain

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

There are two types of speakers, those that are nervous and those that are liars.

I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.

Who prays for Satan? Who, in 1,800 years, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

All colors will agree in the dark.

Only a man’s character is the real criterion of worth.

Strivers achieve what dreamers believe.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

It is of no consequence of what parents a man is born, as long as he be a man of merit.

I think that age is irrelevant. We’re all pretty much spiritual beings – I consider myself to be about eighty-five. I feel like I’m ancient, like two thousand years old.

Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.

Whether he knew it or not, the life he lived was his penance. Punishing himself, for what he believes are his sins. Consciously or subconsciously, he creates the world he lives in. Never believing that he is deserving happiness, deserving joy. His self-destructive nature, in his eyes, and his eyes only, is justified. Everyone is deserving absolution, but he needs to understand, that he is the only one able to forgive himself.

This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.

I often think that men don’t understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.

As the Spanish proverb says, He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him. So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier.

Every burned book enlightens the world.

Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character.

The surest poison is time.