Mark Twain

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known and I know the rest.

By his father he is English, by his mother he is Americanto my mind the blend which makes the perfect man.

Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.

If He Tom Sawyer had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do and Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

When you cannot get a compliment in any other way pay yourself one.

Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderated use rather than total abstinence.

We feel at first as if some opportunities of kindness and sympathy were lost, but learn afterward that any pure grief is ample recompense for all. That is, if we are faithful; for a spent grief is but sympathy with the soul that disposes events, and is as natural as the resin of Arabian trees. Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if he is not.

There is a hush over all Europe, nay, over all the world. Alas! it is the hush of suspense, and in many lands it is the hush of fear. Listen! No, listen carefully, I think I hear somethingyes, there it was quite clear. Dont you hear it? It is the tramp of armies crunching the gravel of the paradegrounds, splashing through rain-soaked fields, the tramp of two million German soldiers and more than a million Italiansgoing on maneuversyes, only on maneuvers!

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

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

All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.

The future is purchased by the present.

He gains everyone’s approval who mixes the pleasant with the useful.

I’ve learned that from my husband, that sort of, you know, ability to not get too high or too low with changes and bumps in the road.

Nothing is real.

The human race afraid of nothing, rushes on through every crime.

We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.

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.

There are two great rules of life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less an exception to the general rule.

Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world.