Mark Twain

I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

He liked to like people, therefore people liked him.

Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.

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.

Look before you leap for as you sow, ye are like to reap.

Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.

Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.

The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy. Collect and learn them; they are notable measures of directions for human life; you have much in little; they save time in speaking; and upon occasion may be the fullest and safest answer.

No poems can please for long or live that are written by water-drinkers.

I encourage you to live with life. Be courageous, adventurous. Give us a tomorrow, more than we deserve.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.

What if… everything you are going through is preparing you for what you asked for?

I at least have so much to do in unraveling certain human lots, and seeing how they were woven and interwoven, that all the light I can command must be concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed over that tempting range of relevancies called the universe.

The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.

Evolution is the law of policies: Darwin said it, Socrates endorsed it, Cuvier proved it and established it for all time in his paper on The Survival of the Fittest. These are illustrious names, this is a mighty doctrine: nothing can ever remove it from its firm base, nothing dissolve it, but evolution.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.

There is one topic peremptorily forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their distempers. If you have not slept, or if you have slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder-stroke, I beseech you, by all angels, to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning.