Mark Twain

If to be interesting is to be uncommonplace, it is becoming a question, with me, if there are any commonplace people.

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.

A person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was getting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn’t ever going to grow dim or doubtful.

Where a blood relation sobs, an intimate friend should choke up, a distant acquaintance should sigh, a stranger should merely fumble sympathetically with his handkerchief.

Warm summer sun, shine kindly here. Warm southern wind, blow softly here. Green sod above, lie light, lie light. Good night, dear Heart, Good night, good night.

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.

We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.

Nothing is beneath you if it is in the direction of your life.

Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

Knowledge and human power are synonymous.

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.

To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs.

Every great man, every successful man, no matter what the field of endeavor, has known the magic that lies in these words: every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.

As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter; and our wine will burn our mouth. Only that good profits, which we can taste with all doors open, and which serves all men.

We bust build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.

Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right; decide on what you think is right and stick to it.

My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.