Mark Twain

Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know.

To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so long life;

The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They looked curiously at the costumes we had brought from the wilds of America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes. They noticed that we looked out for expenses and got what we conveniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in the mischief we came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.

The report of my death was an exaggeration.

Damn the subjunctive. It brings all our writers to shame.

I am admonished in many ways that time is pushing me inexorably along. I am approaching the threshold of age; in 1977 I shall be 142. This is no time to be flitting about the earth. I must cease from the activities proper to youth and begin to take on the dignities and gravities and inertia proper to that season of honorable senility which is on its way.

It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.

What we learn only through the ears makes less impression upon our minds than what is presented to the trustworthy eye.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

It is not enough to conquer; one must learn to seduce.

Be ever on your guard what you say of anybody and to whom.

The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?

Excess in Apparel is another costly Folly. The very Trimming of the vain World would cloath all the naked one.

The eagle has ceased to scream, but the parrots will now begin to chatter. The war of the giants is over and the pigmies will now start to squabble.

The teacher reminded us that Romes liberties were not auctioned off in a day, but were bought slowly, gradually, furtively, little by little; first with a little corn and oil for the exceedingly poor and wretched, later with corn and oil for voters who were not quite so poor, later still with corn and oil for pretty much every man that had a vote to sellexactly our own history over again.

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.