Mark Twain

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.

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

Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.

Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it is the sickening grammar that they use.

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.

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

There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly tends to convert itself into power.

Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age.

Truth is the summit of being justice is the application of it to affairs.

Slavery is an institution for converting men into monkeys.

I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.

A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some area of native land where it may get the love of tender kinship from the earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge. The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one’s own homestead.

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.

I’ll tell you why yes, because why people lie is, because when people stop lying you know they’ve stopped caring.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

Be ever on your guard what you say of anybody and to whom.

Pain never really goes away; you just elevate and get used to it by growing stronger.

Hurricanes are named after people, baby, and I hope you know that falling in love with me will be so much more treacherous than boarding up the windows and waiting for me to pass.

To be mature you have to realize what you value most… Not to arrive at a clear understanding of one’s own values is a tragic waste. You have missed the whole point of what life is for.

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.