Mark Twain

Forget and forgive. This is not difficult when properly understood. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy.

When I was fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have him around. When I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.

Happiness ain’t a thing in itself -it’s only a contrast with something that ain’t pleasant. And so, as soon as the novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it ain’t happiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh.

I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

I said there was nothing so convincing to an Indian as a general massacre. If he could not approve of the massacre, I said the next surest thing for an Indian was soap and education. Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run; because a half-massacred Indian may recover, but if you educate him and wash him, it is bound to finish him some time or other.

Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.

All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.

Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.

No man acquires property without acquiring with it a little arithmetic also.

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.

Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.

The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young orators describe; the key to all ages is – Imbecility; imbecility in the vast majority of men, at all times, and, even in heroes, in all but certain eminent moments; victims of gravity, custom, and fear.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it – and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again – and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

Make yourself necessary to somebody.

There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought.

Thus, by every device from the stick to the carrot, the emaciated Austrian donkey is made to pull the Nazi barrow up an ever-steepening hill.

To be mature you have to realize what you value most… Not to arrive at a clear understanding of one’s own values is a tragic waste. You have missed the whole point of what life is for.

To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know, I’ve done it a thousand times.