Mark Twain

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.

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

To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know, I’ve done it a thousand times.

The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one’s clothes.

We had the sky up there, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss whether they was made or just happened.

It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.

I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl; let him come out as I do, and bark.

Possession isn’t nine-tenths of the law. It’s nine-tenths of the problem.

The price of greatness is responsibility.

Sometimes if I see negative things it really doesn’t faze me, because you’ve got to be tough and you’ve got to be you.

Forget and forgive. This is not difficult when properly understood. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy.

Errors look so very ugly in persons of small means – one feels they are taking quite a liberty in going astray; whereas people of fortune may naturally indulge in a few delinquencies.

The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue.

The pleasure we feel in music springs from the obedience which is in it.

Politics is the gizzard of society, full of gut and gravel.

The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.

Life at its noblest leaves mere happiness far behind; and indeed cannot endure it. Happiness is not the object of life: life has no object: it is an end in itself; and courage consists in the readiness to sacrifice happiness for an intenser quality of life.

It is only through labour and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage; that we move on to better things.

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it is the sickening grammar that they use.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.