Mark Twain

I repeat, sir, that in whatever position you place a woman she is an ornament to society and a treasure to the world. As a sweetheart, she has few equals and no superiors; as a cousin, she is convenient; as a wealthy grandmother with an incurable distemper, she is precious; as a wet-nurse, she has no equal among men. What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.

Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerve give to wisdom.

Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.

We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter.

Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain’t that a big enough majority in any town?

Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.

The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings.

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.

All men’s souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.

You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you’ve become yourself.

Do not undervalue the headache. While it is at its sharpest it seems a bad investment; but when relief begins, the unexpired remainder is worth $4 a minute.

Don’t do or say things you would not like to see on the front page of The Washington Post.

What do we live for; if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?

Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.

Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.

Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.

These are not dark days: these are great days – the greatest days our country has ever lived.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.