Mark Twain

When you ascend the hill of prosperity, may you not meet a friend.

History is strewn thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill, but a lie, well told, is immortal.

He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.

What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand still a year. It grows – it must grow; nothing can prevent it.

Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.

No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the presence of ladies.

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

Our best thoughts come from others.

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.

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.

It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.

There isn’t a single human characteristic that can be safely labeled as American.

The envious man grows lean at the success of his neighbor.

Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones. All men mean well.

You know you’re a success when you look at your kids and realize they turned out better than you.

Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; for causes which are unpenetrated.

Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most.

Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.

Resting at your shore fills me with a peace, as if I’ve always been here. My cells resonating with the element of you, boundaries diffuse as one.

I could not find the world if I searched ten years. I’ve forgotten the road by which I came.