Mark Twain

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.

It takes an enemy and a friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart. The one to slander you, and the other to get the news to you.

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.

So I became a newspaperman. I hated to do it but I couldnt find honest employment.

The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity.

That’s what an army is – a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.

If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sun beams and you will always look lovely!

Laughter is the greatest weapon we have and we, as humans, use it the least.

Tis a rule of manners to avoid exaggeration.

I think I have a good deal of my Uncle Theodore in me, because I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on.

The only prudence in life is concentration.

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.

Excellence must be pursued, it must be wooed with all of one’s might and every bit of effort that we have each day there’s a new encounter, each week is a new challenge.

Pity the man who has a character to support – it is worse than a large family – he is silent poor indeed.

We boast our emancipation from many superstitions; but if we have broken any idols, it is through a transfer of idolatry.

We have all seen with a sense of nausea the abject, squalid, shameless avowal made in the Oxford Union. We are told that we ought not to treat it seriously. The Times talked of the childrens hour. I disagree. It is a very disquieting and disgusting symptom. One can almost feel the curl of contempt upon the lips of the manhood of Germany, Italy, and France when they read the message sent out by Oxford University in the name of Young England. Let them be assured that it is not the last word. But before they blame, as blame they should, these callow ill-tutored youths, they must be sure that they have not been set a bad example by people much older and much higher up.

To be innocent is to be not guilty; but to be virtuous is to overcome our evil inclinations.

People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.

The rich mind lies in the sun and sleeps, and is Nature.

Where charity keeps pace with grain, industry is blessed, but to slave to get, and keep it sordidly, is a sin against Providence, a vice in government and an injury to their neighbours.