Mark Twain

If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.

Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape hanging?

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

How can they expect a harvest of thought who have not had the seed time of character.

Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.

The poets aim is either to profit or to please, or to blend in one the delightful and the useful. Whatever the lesson you would convey, be brief, that your hearers may catch quickly what is said and faithfully retain it. Every superfluous word is spilled from the too-full memory.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.

Let your family, staff, and friends know that you’re still the same person, despite all the publicity and notoriety that accompanies your position.

I never think at all when I write. Nobody can do two things at the same time and do them both well.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

The possibility of stepping into a higher plane is quite real for everyone. It requires no force or effort or sacrifice. It involves little more than changing our ideas about what is normal.

You who write, choose a subject suited to your abilities and think long and hard on what your powers are equal to and what they are unable to perform.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.

Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.