Mark Twain

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

More than once I had seen a noble who had gotten his enemy at a disadvantage stop to pray before cutting his throat.

There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it.

All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they’re a mighty ornery lot. It’s the way they’re raised.

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

Every great movement must experience three stages ridicule, discussion, adoption.

Without friends the world is but a wilderness. There is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his grieves to his friend, but he grieveth the less.

There are charms made only for distance admiration.

Rebellions of the belly are the worst.

Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.

There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.

The responsibility of tolerance lies in those who have the wider vision.

It’s all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date.

We don’t want people to have expectations of us, but then we have expectations of everybody else.

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one’s self?

In the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little.

A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. He’ll beat you all at piety.

The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.