Mark Twain

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

A good memory and a tongue tied in the middle is a combination which gives immortality to conversation.

A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razor strap. A thin book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.

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.

A home without a cat-and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat-may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?

The highest perfection of politeness is only a beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of ungraceful and gilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying.

Life is not an easy matter… You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.

Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.

We teach people how to treat us.

The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

There are no limitations to any of our dreams.

We want to have something of everything-we have types of every sort of wagon and carriage ever used in this country, from the covered wagon of the pioneer to the last style of buggy. We have nearly every type of agricultural instrument, every type of musical instrument, we have all kinds and sorts of furniture and household effects. One of these days the collection will have its own museum at Dearborn, and there we shall reproduce the life of the country in its every age.

To kill a relative of whom you are tired is something. But to inherit his property afterwards, that is genuine pleasure.

No matter how carefully and assiduously and how deeply you bury shit, the American public will find it and buy it in large quantity, It’s true, absolutely true.

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.

I love life, but not everything in it. I love people, but not all of them. I love myself, but not everything about me.