Mark Twain

The cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will not sit upon a hot stove lid again. But he won’t sit upon a cold stove lid, either.

To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.

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

I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

How can what an Englishman believes be hearsay? It is a contradiction in terms.

Let us my friends snatch our opportunity from the passing day.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway.

Universities are of course hostile to geniuses, which, seeing and using ways of their own, discredit the routine: as churches and monasteries persecute youthful saints.

Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.

By his machines man can dive and remain under water like a shark; can fly like a hawk in the air; can see atoms like a gnat; can see the system of the universe of Uriel, the angel of the sun; can carry whatever loads a ton of coal can lift; can knock down cities with his fist of gunpowder; can recover the history of his race by the medals which the deluge, and every creature, civil or savage or brute, has involuntarily dropped of its existence; and divine the future possibility of the planet and its inhabitants by his perception of laws of nature.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

A sage is the instructor of a hundred ages.

I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.

We need much less than we think we need.

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

It is sound judgment to put on a bold face and play your hand for a hundred times what it is worth; forty-nine times out of fifty nobody dares to call it, and you roll in the chips.

It is tact that is golden, not silence.

Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason.

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.