Mark Twain

What is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man’s breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked; that you are beholding what human eye has not seen before; that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To give birth to an idea, to discover a great thought – an intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a field that many a brain-plough had gone over before. To find a new planet, to invent a new hinge, to find a way to make the lightning carry your messages. To be the first – that is the idea.

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re mis-informed.

Warm summer sun, shine kindly here. Warm southern wind, blow softly here. Green sod above, lie light, lie light. Good night, dear Heart, Good night, good night.

Man is the only creature who has a nasty mind.

I have not a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming vices.

I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

Where a blood relation sobs, an intimate friend should choke up, a distant acquaintance should sigh, a stranger should merely fumble sympathetically with his handkerchief.

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.

Let your literary compositions be kept from the public eye for nine years at least.

Solvency is maintained by means of a national debt, on the principle, If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?

Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods.

How could a man be satisfied with a decision between such alternatives and under such circumstances? No more than he can be satisfied with his hat, which he’s chosen from among such shapes as the resources of the age offer him, wearing it at best with a resignation which is chiefly supported by comparison.

I will never do this, says one, yet does it: I am resolved to do this, says another; but flags upon second Thoughts: Or does it, tho’ awkwardly, for his Word’s sake: As if it were worse to break his Word, than to do amiss in keeping it.

No thought, no reflection, no analysis, no cultivation, no intention; let it settle itself.

The human race afraid of nothing, rushes on through every crime.

Nothing does Reason more Right, than the Coolness of those that offer it: for Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than from the arguments of its opposers.

Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!

Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favorable to virtue. Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad.