Mark Twain

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

It isn’t safe to sit in judgment upon another person’s illusion when you are not on the inside. While you are thinking it is a dream, he may be knowing it is a planet.

A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be lead by the nose.

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.

Do not undervalue the headache. While it is at its sharpest it seems a bad investment; but when relief begins, the unexpired remainder is worth $4 a minute.

We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove.

One cause, which is not always observed, of the insufficiency of riches, is that they very seldom make their owner rich.

Men talk as if victory were something fortunate. Work is victory.

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.

When the desire ain’t on me I don’t need help. When it is on me I don’t want any. See? Like the old fellah that never mended his roof. Said on a wet day he couldn’t do it and on a dry day it was as good as anybody’s.

Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.

I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

How many attractions for us have our passing fellows in the streets, both male and female, which our ethics forbid us to express, which yet infuse so much pleasure into life. A lovely child, a handsome youth, a beautiful girl, a heroic man, a maternal woman, a venerable old man, charm us, though strangers, and we cannot say so, or look at them but for a moment.

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.

Your dreams may have shattered, but that doesn’t mean they are over. They can still be turned into a mosaic of success.

He may justly be numbered among the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may early be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to occur habitually to the mind.

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.

No man can be a pure specialist without being in the strict sense an idiot.

Wit and Humor – if any difference, it is in duration – lightning and electric light. Same material, apparently; but one is vivid, and can do damage – the other fools along and enjoys elaboration.

There is this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means; draw it all out, and hold him to it.