Mark Twain

Why was the human race created? Or at least why wasn’t something creditable created in place of it? God had His opportunity. He could have made a reputation. But no, He must commit this grotesque folly – a lark which must have cost Him a regret or two when He came to think it over and observe effects.

We need not worry so much about what man descends from; it’s what he descends to that shames the human race.

Better a broken promise than none at all.

Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerve give to wisdom.

There is nothing you can say in answer to a compliment. I have been complimented myself a great many times, and they always embarrass me-I always feel that they have not said enough.

There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.

I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere.

Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.

I at least have so much to do in unraveling certain human lots, and seeing how they were woven and interwoven, that all the light I can command must be concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed over that tempting range of relevancies called the universe.

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards.

A lawyers dream of heaven; every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.

I trust no one, not even myself.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

All good things are cheap: all bad are very dear.

Sorrow makes us all children again, destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest knows nothing.

Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.

Pleasure that is obtained by unreasonable and unsuitable cost, must always end in pain.

The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.

Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.

Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations.