Mark Twain

I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won’t.

Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.

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.

It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation.

Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.

To delay justice, is injustice.

We mustn’t be stiff and stand-off, you know. We must be thoroughly democratic, and patronize everybody without distinction of class.

Today is a king in disguise.

All of our actions take their hue from the complexion of the heart, as landscapes their variety from light.

Genius Borrows nobly.

I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.

It requires nothing less than a chivalric feeling to sustain a conversation with a lady.

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.

The memory of a day like today reminds me to hold the ones I love that much tighter, that much longer… Take that much more time to be present and to feel the blessing of another day…

And deep in my heart. The answer, it was in me. And I made up my mind. To define my own destiny.

Where women love each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike.

I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.