Quotes from Mark Twain

I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places.

Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.

A baby is an inestimable blessing and bother

It is easier to stay out than get out.

There is no security in life, only opportunity.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

"Classic": A book which people praise but don't read.

Optimist: Day-dreamer more elegantly spelled

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

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

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

It is a time when one's spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death.

One mustn't criticize other people on grounds where he can't stand perpendicular himself

In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination.

Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy must have somebody to divide it with.

God's great cosmic joke on the human race was requiring that men and women live together in marriage

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

It is not worthwhile to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible

When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

The offspring of riches: Pride, vanity, ostentation, arrogance, tyranny

Perseverance is a principle that should be commendable in those who have judgment to govern it

He gossips habitually; he lacks the common wisdom to keep still that deadly enemy of man, his own tongue

If He Tom Sawyer had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do and Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, for democracy is the most expensive and nefarious kind of government ever heard of on earth