Mark Twain

Gratitude is a debt which usually goes on accumulating like blackmail; the more you pay, the more is exacted. In time, you are made to realize that the kindness done you is become a curse and you wish it had not happened.

A home without a cat-and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat-may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large mattertis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

There are many scapegoats for our sins, but the most popular is providence.

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.

He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.

An awareness of our past is essential to the establishment of our personality and our identity as Africans.

We can’t plan life. All we can do is be available for it.

Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.

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

Your dreams may have shattered, but that doesn’t mean they are over. They can still be turned into a mosaic of success.

The only secrets are the secrets that keep themselves.

In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.

Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats.

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

All of humanity is living in a dream world, but suffering real consequences.

The lofty pine is oftenest shaken by the winds; High towers fall with a heavier crash; And the lightning strikes the highest mountain.

Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.

In heaven an angel is no one in particular.

Man was born to be rich, or grow rich by use of his faculties, by the union of thought with nature. Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players.