Mark Twain

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

Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.

Do something every day that you don’t want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.

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.

There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.

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

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said it before.

As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace.

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

The State must follow, and not lead, the character and progress of the citizen.

It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

When the righteous man truth away from his righteousness that he hath committed and doeth that which is neither quite lawful nor quite right, he will generally be found to have gained in amiability what he has lost in holiness.

Farmers are respectable and interesting to me in proportion as they are poor.

The quality of the imagination is to flow and not to freeze.

Tread softly, Breathe peacefully, Laugh hysterically.

Plan backwards as well as forward. Set objectives and trace back to see how to achieve them. You may find that no path can get you there. Plan forward to see where your steps will take you, which may not be clear or intuitive.

Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.

Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.