Mark Twain

As to the adjective, when in doubt strike it out.

He does not care for flowers. Calls them rubbish, and cannot tell one from another, and thinks it is superior to feel like that.

I never let schooling interfere with my education.

Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: The one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it.

To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know, I’ve done it a thousand times.

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.

A great man stands on God. A small man on a great man.

Tis a rule of manners to avoid exaggeration.

Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.

Stay with me,’ he said, ‘until the sun goes out, the seas are parched, and the wind draws its last breath.

His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.

We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together, and if we are to live together we have to talk.

Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

Some men are born to own, and can animate all their possessions. Others cannot: their owning is not graceful; seems to be a compromise of their character: they seem to steal their own dividends.

To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.