Quotes from Mark Twain

When in doubt tell the truth.

Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish.

I make it a rule never to smoke while I'm sleeping.

Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society.

You perceive I generalize with intrepidity from single instances. It is the tourist's custom.

It is our nature to conform; it is a force which not many can successfully resist. What is its seat? The inborn requirement of self-approval.

...heaven for climate, and hell for society.

You can't make a life over. Society wouldn't let you if you would.

We may not doubt that society in heaven consists mainly of undesirable persons.

Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.

From his cradle to his grave a man never does a single thing which has any FIRST AND FOREMOST object but one -- to secure peace of mind, spiritual comfort, for HIMSELF.

There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics.

Life is but a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

I've dealt with many crises in my life, but few will ever happen.

Life is short, break the rules.

Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.

The only certainties in life are death and taxes.

The future interests me - I'm going to spend the rest of my life there.

The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it.

To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so long life.

We recognize that there are no trivial occurrences in life if we get the right focus on them.

Each person is born to one possession which outvalues all his others-his last breath.