Mark Twain

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. (The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are.)

If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.

Never do wrong when people are looking.

There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable, and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.

Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial “we.”

Do not undervalue the headache. While it is at its sharpest it seems a bad investment; but when relief begins, the unexpired remainder is worth $4 a minute.

Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.

The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.

If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

It always seems impossible until it is done.

If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that. Would Columbus have discovered America if he’d said ‘What if I sink on the way over? What if I meet pirates? What if I never come back?’ He wouldn’t even have started.

The man who can make hard things easy is the educator.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

A sudden bold and unexpected question does many times surprise a man and lay him open.

When you ascend the hill of prosperity, may you not meet a friend.

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

Ready are you? What know you of ready?

For the most important decisions in your life, trust your intuition, and then work with everything you have, to prove it right.

People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.