Mark Twain

I refused to attend his funeral. But I wrote a very nice letter explaining that I approved of it.

The trouble with you Chicago people is that you think you are the best people down here, whereas you are merely the most numerous.

Temperate temperance is best; intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance.

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

It was the schoolboy who said, Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.

When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.

Moral of the Work. In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill.

Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.

One way of getting an idea of our fellow-countrymen’s miseries is to go and look at their pleasures.

The universe seems bankrupt as soon as we begin to discuss the characters of individuals.

The right merchant is one who has the just average of faculties we call common sense; a man of a strong affinity for facts, who makes up his decision on what he has seen. He is thoroughly persuaded of the truths of arithmetic. There is always a reason, in the man, for his good or bad fortune in making money. Men talk as if there were some magic about this. He knows that all goes on the old road, pound for pound, cent for cent – for every effect a perfect cause – and that good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.

But most of us are apt to settle within ourselves that the man who blocks our way is odious, and not to mind causing him a little of the disgust which his personality excites in ourselves.

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.

Life is largely a matter of expectation.

Nothing destroys authority more than the unequal and untimely interchange of power stretched too far and relaxed too much.

I do not hesitate to read all good books in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable – any real insight or broad human sentiment.

Always do what you are afraid to do.

The majority have no other reason for their opinions than that they are the fashion.

Poets, like friends to whom you are in debt, you hate.

I think we foreshorten our own viewpoint if we consider any state of mind, or society, or government as final. Growth and change! We can’t get away from them.

We meet on the broad pathway of good faith and good will; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, — for parents sometimes chide their children too severely; nor brothers only, — for brothers differ. The friendship between me and you I will not compare to a chain; for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might break. We are the same as if one man’s body were to be divided into two parts, we are all one flesh and blood.