Mark Twain

If you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes.

There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he can’t afford it, and when he can.

It is at our mother’s knee that we acquire our noblest and truest and highest ideals, but there is seldom any money in them.

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.

Duties are not performed for duty’s sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty -the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself.

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being?

Knowledge is power.

If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.

Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive.

The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men.

I think we foreshorten our own viewpoint if we consider any state of mind, or society, or government as final. Growth and change! We can’t get away from them.

He that thinks he can afford to be negligent is not far from being poor.

It’s your life-but only if you make it so.

Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others… This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Unconsciously we all have a standard by which we measure other men, and if we examine closely we find that this standard is a very simple one, and is this: we admire them, we envy them, for great qualities we ourselves lack. Hero worship consists in just that. Our heroes are men who do things which we recognize, with regret, and sometimes with a secret shame, that we cannot do. We find not much in ourselves to admire, we are always privately wanting to be like somebody else. If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.

The maxim of the British people is Business as usual.

Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.

True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his point of view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism.

The best effort of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.