Mark Twain

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

I repeat, sir, that in whatever position you place a woman she is an ornament to society and a treasure to the world. As a sweetheart, she has few equals and no superiors; as a cousin, she is convenient; as a wealthy grandmother with an incurable distemper, she is precious; as a wet-nurse, she has no equal among men. What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.

Evolution is the law of policies: Darwin said it, Socrates endorsed it, Cuvier proved it and established it for all time in his paper on The Survival of the Fittest. These are illustrious names, this is a mighty doctrine: nothing can ever remove it from its firm base, nothing dissolve it, but evolution.

Temperate temperance is best; intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance.

A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

We are inclined to believe those whom we don not know because they have never deceived us.

This is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.

An index is a great leveller.

It is a severe Rebuke upon us, that God makes us so many Allowances, and we make so few to our Neighbor: As if Charity had nothing to do with Religion; Or Love with Faith, that ought to work by it.

For disappointments, that come not by our own folly, they are the trials or corrections of Heaven: and it is our own fault, if they prove not our advantage.

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.

I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.

How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?

Character building begins in our infancy and continues until death.

It was not that she was out of temper, but that the world was not equal to the demands of her fine organism.

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.

Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.

The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.

Every man is a consumer and ought to be a producer.

Might, could, would – they are contemptible auxiliaries.