Mark Twain

The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They looked curiously at the costumes we had brought from the wilds of America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes. They noticed that we looked out for expenses and got what we conveniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in the mischief we came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.

Never learn to do anything. If you don’t learn, you will always find someone else to do it for you.

There is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought -a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!

To succeed in life, you need to things: ignorance and confidence.

Principles aren’t of much account anyway, except at election time. After that you hang them up to let them season.

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

You cannot dream yourself into a character you must hammer and forge yourself into one.

The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.

It’s easier to hold onto your own stereotypes and misconceptions, it makes you feel justified in your own ignorance. That’s America. So the challenge for us is, are we ready for change?

Heaven is the work of the best and kindest men and women. Hell is the work of prigs, pedants and professional truth-tellers. The world is an attempt to make the best of Heaven and Hell.

We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.

These times of ours are serious and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike. As soon as there is life there is danger.

Religion is as effectually destroyed by bigotry as by indifference.

Our impartiality is kept for abstract merit and demerit, which none of us ever saw.

He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.

Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.

What do sad complaints avail if the offense is not cut down by punishment.

A Judge may be a farmer; but he is not to geld his own pigs. A Judge may play a little at cards for his own amusement; but he is not to play at marbles, or chuck farthing in the Piazza.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it – and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again – and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.