Mark Twain (1835 – 1910), was an American writer, humorist, publisher, and lecturer.

1802. Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.

1803. I was born lazy. I am no lazier now than I was forty years ago, but that is because I reached the limit forty years ago. You can't go beyond possibility.

1804. It is a pity we can't escape from life when we are young.

1805. There is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a Dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And You are but a Thought — a vagrant Thought, a useless Thought, a homeless Thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities.

1806. When the human race is not grotesque it is because it is asleep and losing its opportunity.

1807. Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

1808. Whenever the human race assembles to a number exceeding four, it cannot stand free speech.

1725. Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.

1726. Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.

1727. Virtue never has been as respectable as money.

1728. It may be called the Master Passion—the hunger for Self-Approval.

1729. To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.

1730. You cannot lay bare your private soul and look at it. You are too much ashamed of yourself. It is too disgusting. For that reason I confine myself to drawing the portraits of others.

1731. I started out alone to seek adventures. You don't really have to seek them—that is nothing but a phrase—they come to you.

1718. Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world — and never will.

1719. We haven't all had the good fortune to be ladies; we haven't all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground.

1720. I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

1721. A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.

1722. All creatures kill—there seems to be no exception; but of the whole list, man is the only one that kills for fun; he is the only one that kills in malice, the only one that kills for revenge.

1723. As I slowly grow wise I briskly grow cautious.

1724. Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.

1655. Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments flit away and a sunny spirit takes their place.

1656. An injurious lie is an uncommendable thing; and so, also, and in the same degree, is an injurious truth—a fact that is recognized by the law of libel.

1657. A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.

1658. Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.

1659. I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.

1660. They spell it "Vinci" and pronounce it "Vinchy". Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.

1661. The funniest things are the forbidden.

1662. Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.

1593. A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

1594. Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.

1595. None but the dead have free speech.

1596. Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship God, and over these ideals they dispute and cannot unite — but they all worship money.

1597. You can't depend on your judgment when your imagination is out of focus.

1598. God's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.

1599. Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.

1560. Honesty is the best policy — when there is money in it.

1550. He had only one vanity; he thought he could give advice better than any other person.

1551. Familiarity breeds contempt — and children.

1552. Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all — the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved.

1553. It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people [the Filipinos] free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.

1554. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.

1555. It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.

1514. A baby is an inestimable blessing and bother.

1515. Always acknowledge a fault frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you opportunity to commit more.

1516. Not a single right is indestructible: a new might can at any time abolish it, hence, man possesses not a single permanent right. God is Might (and He is shifty, malicious, and uncertain).

1517. Humor must not professedly teach, and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever. By forever, I mean thirty years.

1518. Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.

1519. "In God We Trust." It is the choicest compliment that has ever been paid us, and the most gratifying to our feelings. It is simple, direct, gracefully phrased: it always sounds well — In God We Trust.

1484. Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

1485. The only reason why God created man is because he was disappointed with the monkey.

1486. The lack of money is the root of all evil.

1487. France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.

1488. Now what I contend is that my body is my own, at least I have always so regarded it. If I do harm through my experimenting with it, it is I who suffer, not the state.

1489. Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.

1490. To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add the sheep was a tautology.

1491. Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

1401. Man is the only creature who has a nasty mind.

1402. It is easier to stay out than get out.

1403. The man who does not read books has no advantage over the man that can not read them.

1404. A lie can run around the world six times while the truth is still trying to put on its pants.

1405. I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

1406. Travel is fatal to prejudice, Bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.

1407. Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.

1408. Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.

1409. Don't wait the time is never just right.

1379. A man cannot be made comfortable without his own approval.

1380. We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove.

1381. In the real world, nothing happens at the right place at the right time. It is the job of journalists and historians to correct that.

1382. I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.

1383. My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.

1384. Adam was the luckiest man; he had no mother-in-law.

1385. Temperate temperance is best; intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance.

1386. I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

1354. Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.

1355. In Boston they ask, How much does he know? In New York, How much is he worth? In Philadelphia, Who were his parents?

1356. Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.

1357. A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

1358. Be good and you will be lonely.

1359. When you cannot get a compliment in any other way pay yourself one.

1360. To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did, I ought to know because I've done it a thousand times.

1361. There’s always something about your success that displeases even your best friends.

1312. Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.

1313. Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.

1314. Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.

1315. Prosperity is the best protector of principle.

1316. To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler and less trouble.

1317. What, then, is the true Gospel of consistency? Change. Who is the really consistent man? The man who changes. Since change is the law of his being, he cannot be consistent if he stick in a rut.

1318. What do we call love, hate, charity, revenge, humanity, forgiveness? Different results of the master impulse, the necessity of securing one's self-approval.

1128. Do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.

1129. We like a man to come right out and say what he thinks, if we agree with him.

1130. A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.

1131. We need not worry so much about what man descends from; it's what he descends to that shames the human race.

1132. I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won’t.

1133. Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.

1134. There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it, and when he can.
ere are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.

1043. Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.

1044. If you have nothing to say, say nothing.

1045. The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

1046. Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

1047. Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

1048. Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear -- not absence of fear.

797. A successful book is not made of what is in it, but of what is left out of it.

798. Arguments are unsafe with wives, because they examine them; but they do not examine compliments.

799. Marriage—yes, it is the supreme felicity of life. I concede it. And it is also the supreme tragedy of life. The deeper the love the surer the tragedy. And the more disconsolating when it comes.

800. There are three things which I consider excellent advice. First, don’t smoke to excess. Second, don’t drink to excess. Third, don’t marry to excess.

801. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

802. If you are speaking the truth you don't have to remember anything.

526. To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.

526. If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

527. Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too can become great.

528. Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

529. Do something every day that you don’t want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.

530. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did.

531. Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.

312. Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection”

313. Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

314. “Never try to teach a pig to sing, you waste your time, and you annoy the pig”

315. To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.

316. If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

317. The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

318. It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

319. Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul..

62. A good marriage is the union of two forgivers.

63. It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

64. A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shinning, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

65. Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

66. Give everyday the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life.

67. Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you would rather have talked.

68. Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.