Mark Twain

To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so long life;

There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable, and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.

The Pause; that impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words, however so felicitous, could accomplish it.

People are much more willing to lend you books than bookcases.

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure.

I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

There can be no friendship where there is no freedom. Friendship loves a free air, and will not be fenced up in straight and narrow enclosures.

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

I’m only a beer teetotaler, not a champagne teetotaler.

Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because one’s own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care.

Every man passes his life in the search after friendship.

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.

I am living in a nightmare, from which from time to time I wake in sleep.

When death comes it is never our tenderness that we repent from, but our severity.

The remedy is worse than the disease.

An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.

Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.

Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.