Mark Twain

If He Tom Sawyer had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do and Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

There are only two forces that can carry light to all the corners of the globe… the sun in the heavens and the Associated Press down here.

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.

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered – either by themselves or by others.

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

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.

He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.

A nap, my friend, is a brief period of sleep which overtakes superannuated persons when they endeavor to entertain unwelcome visitors or to listen to scientific lectures.

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

This is the true joy in life: Being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature – if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you – know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse.

Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.

He has the deed half done who has made a beginning.

The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.

Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.

Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed under the fire of thought; for causes which are unpenetrated.

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.

Strivers achieve what dreamers believe.

It is the flash which appears, the thunderbolt will follow.

I must first know myself, as the Delphian inscription says; to be curious about that which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own self, would be ridiculous. And therefore I bid farewell to all this; the common opinion is enough for me. For, as I was saying, I want to know not about this, but about myself: am I a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a creature of a gentler and simpler sort, to whom Nature has given a diviner and lowlier destiny?