Mark Twain

Wit and Humor – if any difference, it is in duration – lightning and electric light. Same material, apparently; but one is vivid, and can do damage – the other fools along and enjoys elaboration.

All say, How hard it is that we have to die – a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

When one has tasted it Watermelon he knows what the angels eat.

Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain’t that a big enough majority in any town?

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. (The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are.)

In order to fully realize how bad a popular play can be, it is necessary to see it twice.

Language is the archives of history.

Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads.

Tis God gives skill, but not without men’s hand: He could not make Antonio Stradivarius’s violins without Antonio.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.

It is natural to die as to be born.

That which builds is better than that which is built.

The right merchant is one who has the just average of faculties we call common sense; a man of a strong affinity for facts, who makes up his decision on what he has seen. He is thoroughly persuaded of the truths of arithmetic. There is always a reason, in the man, for his good or bad fortune in making money. Men talk as if there were some magic about this. He knows that all goes on the old road, pound for pound, cent for cent – for every effect a perfect cause – and that good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.

Only poetry inspires poetry.

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake . . . by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.

In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.