Mark Twain

I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won’t.

An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I’ve dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half… I never write metropolis for seven cents, because I can get the same money for city. I never write policeman, because I can get the same price for cop…. I never write valetudinarian at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn’t do it for fifteen.

I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we were young. The young sow wild oats. The old grow sage.

If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.

A wise man does not waste so good a commodity as lying for naught.

The way by which you may get money almost without exception leads downward.

Nothing makes a man so selfish as work.

Nothing’s beautiful from every point of view.

The luster of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades; the highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of rest after fatigue.

The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.

Poets wish to profit or to please.

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim.

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare. While he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.

Believe that each day that shines on you is your last.

The hottest love has the coldest end.