Mark Twain

What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey.

When in doubt tell the truth.

Thou shalt not commit adultry is a command which makes no distinction between the following persons. They are all required to obey it: children at birth. Children in the cradle. School children. Youths and maidens. Fresh adults. Older ones. Men and women of 40. Of 50. Of 60. Of 70. Of 80. Of 100. The command does not distribute its burden equally, and cannot. It is not hard upon the three sets of children.

The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder’s moral perceptions are known and conceded the world over; and a priveleged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name.

A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.

The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.

It the proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way.

I was brought up to hate and fear liberty. I came to love it. That is the secret of my whole career.

He tosses aside his paint-pots and his words a foot and a half long.

All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was.

Whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can commit the least act of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it.

Here there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing what you like. Hell, in short, is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

I could never be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

You can free yourself from aging by reinterpreting your body and by grasping the link between belief and biology.

Possession isn’t nine-tenths of the law. It’s nine-tenths of the problem.

The secret in education lies in respecting the student.

Once we recognize that all things are impermanent, we have no problem enjoying them.

Sympathetic people often don’t communicate well, they back reflected images which hide their own depths.

Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.

We lie in the lap of immense intelligence.