Mark Twain

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

...[H]eaven for climate, Hell for society.

Whose property is my body? Probably mine. I so regard it. If I experiment with it, who must be answerable? I, not the State. If I choose injudiciously, does the State die? Oh no.

Your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug,—push it a little—crowd it a little—weaken it a little, century by …

The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples — that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at.

We believe that out of the public school grows the greatness of a nation.

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 …

the weakest of all weak things is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire

There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory.

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

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

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.

[Citing a familiar "American joke":] In Boston they ask, How much does he know? In New York, How much is he worth? In Philadelphia, Who were his parents?

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

James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London, but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness; the report of my death was an exaggeration.

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.

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

Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure.

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

As I slowly grow wise I briskly grow cautious.

An experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar.

He [George Washington Cable] has taught me to abhor and detest the Sabbath day and hunt up new and troublesome ways to dishonor it.