Mark Twain

The Pause; that impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words, however so felicitous, could accomplish it.

All say, How hard it is that we have to die – a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.

As a thinker and planner the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized!

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don’t know anything and can’t read.

Then I realized that secrecy is actually to the detriment of my own peace of mind and self, and that I could still sustain my belief in privacy and be authentic and transparent at the same time. It was a pretty revelatory moment, and there’s been a liberating force that’s come from it.

The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young orators describe; the key to all ages is – Imbecility; imbecility in the vast majority of men, at all times, and, even in heroes, in all but certain eminent moments; victims of gravity, custom, and fear.

The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.

Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed.

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

Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.

Poor fellow! I think he is in love with you.’ I am not aware of it. And to me it is one of the most odious things in a girl’s life, that there must always be some supposition of falling in love coming between her and any man who is kind to her… I have no ground for the nonsensical vanity of fancying everybody who comes near me is in love with me.

Riches are for spending.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly conduced, will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction.

Every woman wants to be first to someone sometime in her life and that desire is the explanation for many strange things women do.

Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.

Beauty without expression is boring.

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