Mark Twain

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don’t know anything and can’t read.

The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.

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

Warm summer sun, shine kindly here. Warm southern wind, blow softly here. Green sod above, lie light, lie light. Good night, dear Heart, Good night, good night.

War talk by men who have been in a war is always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon is likely to be dull.

For Africa to me… is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Let them be your only diet, drink, and botanical medicines.

The human race was always interesting and we know by its past that it will always continue so, monotonously.

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.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.

Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal.

Accept your genius and say what you think.

Even the best things are not equal to their fame.

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

Then I realized that secrecy is actually to the detriment of my own peace of mind and self, and that I could still sustain my belief in privacy and be authentic and transparent at the same time. It was a pretty revelatory moment, and there’s been a liberating force that’s come from it.

It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgment.

There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.