Mark Twain

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

After a few months’ acquaintance with European coffee, one’s mind weakens, and his faith with it, and he begins to wonder if the rich beverage of home, with its clotted layer of yellow cream on top of it, is not a mere dream after all, and a thing which never existed.

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don’t know anything and can’t read.

A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle; …they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble for little mean advantages over each other; age creeps upon them; infirmities follow; …those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to aching grief. It comes at last-the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them-and they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence, …a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever.

In his private heart no man much respects himself.

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.

It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them.

I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

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.

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

We all have our challenges, issues, things that we’re working through and insecurity is there because nobody is perfect no matter who you are. It’s that imperfection that makes you so dope.

All colors will agree in the dark.

Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.

Nothing is more important than reconnecting with your bliss. Nothing is as rich. Nothing is more real.

Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it’s unbelievable.

Lack of money is the root of all evil.

The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem.

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time.

Don’t be a cynic and disconsolate preacher. Don’t bewail and moan. Omit the negative propositions. Challenge us with incessant affirmatives. Don’t waste yourself in rejection, or bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.

Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim.