Mark Twain

A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.

Civilization largely consists in hiding human nature. When the barbarian learns to hide it we account him enlightened.

It now seems plain to me that that theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one...the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.

In Austria an editor who can write well is valuable, but he is not likely to remain so unless he can handle a sabre with charm.

Supposing is good, but finding out is better.

Nothing helps scenery like bacon and eggs.

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

I hate editors, for they make me abandon a lot of perfectly good English words.

Life is short, break the rules.

If Christians should vote their duty to God at the polls, they would carry every election, and do it with ease. They would elect every clean candidate in the United States, and defeat every soiled one. Their prodigious power would be quickly realized and recognized, and afterward there would be no unclean candidates upon any ticket, and graft would cease.

Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of itself.

I like the truth sometimes, but I don't care enough for it to hanker after it.

I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices or caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being-that is enough for me; he can't be any worse.

We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that the savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter.

We wish to learn all the curious, outlandish ways of all the different countries, so that we can "show off" and astonish people when we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our untraveled friends with our strange foreign fashions which we can't shake off.

I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.

I have been on the verge of being an angel all my life, but it's never happened yet.

We catched fish, and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud, and it warn’t often that we laughed, only a kind of low chuckle. We had mighty good weather, as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all, that night, nor the next, nor the next.

There has been much tragedy in my life; at least half of it actually happened.

All I care to know about a man is that he is a human being... he can't be any worse.

We don't cut up when mad men are bred by the old legitimate regular stock religions, but we can't allow wildcat religions to indulge in such disastrous experiments.