Mark Twain

History is strewn thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill, but a lie, well told, is immortal.

We must annex those people. We can afflict them with our wise and beneficent government. We can introduce the novelty of thieves, all the way up from street-car pickpockets to municipal robbers and Government defaulters, and show them how amusing it is to arrest them and try them and then turn them loose – some for cash and some for political influence. We can make them ashamed of their simple and primitive justice. We can make that little bunch of sleepy islands the hottest corner on earth, and array it in the moral splendor of our high and holy civilization. Annexation is what the poor islanders need. Shall we to men benighted, the lamp of life deny?

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said it before.

Laughter is the greatest weapon we have and we, as humans, use it the least.

It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.

What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin

The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.

Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength. True power is within and available to you now.

In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.

Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.

I don’t let my mouth say nothin’ my head can’t stand.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

Men lose their tempers in defending their taste.

Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

There is only one good – knowledge; and only one evil – ignorance.

City life is millions of people being lonesome together.

Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence – neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish – it is an imponderably valuable gift.

It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Justice though moving with tardy pace, has seldom failed to overtake the wicked in their flight.