Mark Twain

If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.

Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it is the sickening grammar that they use.

The human race was always interesting and we know by its past that it will always continue so, monotonously.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

Scientists have odious manners, except when you prop up their theory; then you can borrow money of them.

Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.

Might, could, would – they are contemptible auxiliaries.

Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.

It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centered. But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.

The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

Our thinking and our behaviour are always in anticipation of a response. It is therefore fear-based.

How some of the writers I come across get through their books without dying of boredom is beyond me.

The first wealth is health.

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

Physically there is nothing to distinguish human society from the farm-yard except that children are more troublesome and costly than chickens and calves and that men and women are not so completely enslaved as farm stock.

A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most. On Other Peoples Expectations: The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor; he took my measurement anew every time he saw me, while all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.

Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.