Mark Twain

Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon human promises? That is a peculiar condition of society which enables a whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished speculator in lands and mines this remark: – I wasn’t worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two millions of dollars.

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

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.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

Classic – A book which people praise and don’t read.

Man is the only creature who has a nasty mind.

There is no sincerer love than the love of food.

A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

By his machines man can dive and remain under water like a shark; can fly like a hawk in the air; can see atoms like a gnat; can see the system of the universe of Uriel, the angel of the sun; can carry whatever loads a ton of coal can lift; can knock down cities with his fist of gunpowder; can recover the history of his race by the medals which the deluge, and every creature, civil or savage or brute, has involuntarily dropped of its existence; and divine the future possibility of the planet and its inhabitants by his perception of laws of nature.

Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly.

Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.

Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.

She is but half a wife that is not, nor is capable of being, a friend.

Guilt, regret, resentment, sadness and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past and not enough presence.

A man’s style is his mind’s voice. Wooden minds, wooden voices.

It were better to be of no church, than to be bitter for any.

All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.

Go anywhere in England where there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people; and what do you always find? That the stables are the real center of the household.

Any experience of reality is indescribable!