Mark Twain
(page 5)

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

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

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.

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

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

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

'Classic'. A book which people praise and don't read.

When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.

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

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.

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

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.

I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.

I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.

In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.