Mark Twain

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.

Humanity has unquestionably one really effective weapon

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.

Opportunity makes a thief.

The more you know the less you understand.

Not even the Devil can call a woman “Slut” if he is not able to make her fall in love.

Fortune knocks at every man’s door once in a life, but in a good many cases the man is in a neighboring saloon and does not hear her.

This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, slow rises worth by poverty depressed.

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.

Say a word, say a thousand to me on the telephone and I shall choose the wrong one to cling to as though you had said it after long deliberation when only I provoked it from you, I will cling to it from among a thousand, to be provoked and hurl it back with something I mean no more than you meant that, something for you to cling to and retreat clinging to.

He who is only a traveler learns things at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human experience.

Have a care, therefore, where there is more sail than ballast.

Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.

It is not known precisely where angels dwell whether in the air, the void, or the planets. It has not been God’s pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.

The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars.

Surely life, if it be not long, is tedious, since we are forced to call in the assistance of so many trifles to rid us of our time, of that time which never can return.