Mark Twain

There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he can’t afford it, and when he can.

A jay hasnt got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; and four times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise.

The Pause; that impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words, however so felicitous, could accomplish it.

She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.

A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.

It is better to be a young June-bug than an old bird of paradise.

I don’t like to read books. They muss up my mind.

When I went to our American history books to learn how our forefathers harrowed the land, I discovered that the historians knew nothing about harrows. Yet our country has depended more on harrows than on guns or speeches. I thought that a history which excluded harrows, and all the rest of daily life, was bunk. And I think so yet.

You’re only lonely if you’re not there for you.

I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am.

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.

Without doubt, Thomas Edison is my greatest contemporary.

Greatest thing in life is experience. Even mistakes have value.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

When people tell you not to believe in your dreams, and they say “Why?”, say “Why not?”

Giving frees us from the familiar territory of our own needs by opening our mind to the unexplained worlds occupied by the needs of others.

You are the fever that never broke, the name stuck in my throat. You are every letter of every word in every poem I ever wrote.

A man can’t ‘just be friends’ with another woman. Period.

I can’t understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars.

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possesion, a duty.

When you embark for strange places don’t leave any of yourself safely at the shore… Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.