Mark Twain

It is our nature to conform; it is a force which not many can successfully resist. What is its seat? The inborn requirement of self-approval.

Whatever thing men call great, look for it in Joan of Arc, and there you will find it.

Our heroes are men who do things which we recognize, with regret, and sometimes with a secret shame, that we cannot do.

The citizen who sees his society's democratic clothes being worn out and does not cry it out, is not a patriot, but a traitor.

You are a coward when you even seem to have backed down from a thing you openly set out to do

I shall never use profanity except in discussing house rent and taxes.

God has put something noble and good into every heart His hand created.

A little starvation can really do more for the average sick man than can the best medicines and the best doctors.

One holds a bottle of red wine by the neck, a woman by the waist, and a bottle of champagne by the derriere.

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.

I was in one of the most grand attitudes I ever struck, with my arm stretched up pointing to the sun. It was a noble effect. You could see the shudder sweep the mass like a wave.

There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy bad principles and recreate good ones; it can lift men to angelship.

[Do you worry unnecessarily about the future? Remember most fears are just False Evidence Appearing Real. Don't let unfounded fears rob you of the joys of life or you too will say...] There has been much tragedy in my life; [and] at least half of it actually happened.

I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it.

What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand still a year. It grows - it must grow; nothing can prevent it.

When a man's dog turns against hime, it is time for his wife to pack her trunk and go home to mamma.

What is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man's breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery!

Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against insanity. That is where the true evil lies.

But we are all insane, anyway. Note the mountain-climbers.

Note that venerable proverb: Children and fools always speak the truth. The deduction is plain: adults and wise persons never speak it.

Never tell a lie-except for practice.