Mark Twain

We are always too busy for our children; we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them; but the most precious gift, our personal association, which means so much to them, we give grudgingly.

There is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought -a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!

God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.

That’s what an army is – a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.

October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.

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

Today is Trinity Sunday. Centuries ago words were written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of Truth and Justice: Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valor, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

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

I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way: by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.

Rare virtues are like rare plants or animals, things that have not been able to hold their own in the world. A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal.

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

None of us should be defined by the worst thing we’ve ever done.

Reading Proust isn’t just reading a book, it’s an experience and you can’t reject an experience.

Self-command is the main discipline.

Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.

It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.

People of great position are servants times three, servants of their country, servants of fame, and servants of business.

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.

This is the comfort of the godly: the grave cannot hold them, and they live as soon as they die. For death is no more than turning us over from time to eternity.