Mark Twain

The man who is ostentatious of his modesty is twin to the statue that wears a fig-leaf.

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

We may not pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents.

Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul.

Never put off until tomorrow, what you can put off until the day after tomorrow.

The Public is merely a multiplied “me”.

Ignorance… is a painless evil; so, I should think, is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it.

He who praises every body, praises nobody.

Must be out-of-doors enough to get experience of wholesome reality, as a ballast to thought and sentiment. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life.

In traveling, a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

The philosopher is Nature’s pilot. And there you have our difference: to be n hell is to drift: to be in heaven is to steer.

Tragedy was foresworn, in ritual denial of the ripe knowledge that we are drawing away from one another, that we share only one thing, share the fear of belonging to another, or to others, or to God; love or money, tender equated in advertising and the world, where only money is currency, and under dead trees and brittle ornaments prehensile hands exchange forgeries of what the heart dare not surrender.

For what are the classics but the noblest thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.

You who write, choose a subject suited to your abilities and think long and hard on what your powers are equal to and what they are unable to perform.

Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.

If you are good, life is good.

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

By his father he is English, by his mother he is Americanto my mind the blend which makes the perfect man.

Enjoy yourself – it’s later than you think.

Good sense is both the first principal and the parent source of good writing.

If thou rise with an Appetite, thou art sure never to sit down without one.