Quotes from Mark Twain

By the etiquette of war, it is permitted to none below the rank of newspaper correspondent to dictate to the general in the field

The irresistable desire to be irresistibly desired.

Iíve seen many troubles in my time, only half of which ever came true

If you're inclined to worry, society sure has given you a good selection.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

I deal with temptation by yielding to it

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

December is the toughest month of the year. Others are July, January, September, Aprll, November, May, March, June, October, August, and February.

Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense.

Fortune knocks at every man's door once in a life, but in a good many cases the man is in a neighboring saloon and does not hear her.

Editor is a critic. He has pulled out his carving-knife and his tomahawk and is starting after a book which he is going to have for breakfast.

There was never a century nor a country that was short of experts who knew the Deity's mind and were willing to reveal it.

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.

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

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

Live simple, love well, and take time to smell the flowers along the way.

The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work.

Time and tide wait for no man. A pompous and self-satisfied proverb, and was true for a billion years; but in our day of electric wires and water-ballast we turn it around: Man waits not for time nor tide.

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

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven.

A marriage...makes of two fractional lives a whole; it gives to two purposeless lives a work, and doubles the strength of each to perform it; it gives to two questioning natures a reason for living, and something to live for; it will give a new gladness to the sunshine, a new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth, and a new mystery to life.

New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.