Mark Twain

Sacred cows make the best hamburger.

Foreigners cannot enjoy our food, I suppose, any more than we can enjoy theirs. It is not strange; for tastes are made, not born. I might glorify my bill of fare until I was tired; but after all, the Scotchman would shake his head and say, 'Where's your haggis?' and the Fijan would sigh and say, 'Where's your missionary?'

A reputable lawyer will advise you to keep out of the law, make the best of a foolish bargain, and not get caught again.

Many people have the reasoning facility, but no one uses it in religious matters.

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.

All right, then, I'll go to hell.

It is a good idea to obey all the rules when you're young just so you'll have the strength to break them when you're old.

That is the way of the scientist. He will spend thirty years in building up a mountain range of facts with the intent to prove a certain theory; then he is so happy with his achievement that as a rule he overlooks the main chief fact of all-that all his accumulation proves an entirely different thing.

Scientists have odious manners, except when you prop up their theory; then you can borrow money off them.

God's noblest work. Man who found it out? Man.

It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.

The partitions of the houses were so thin we could hear the women occupants of adjoining rooms changing their minds.

Damn the subjunctive. It brings all our writers to shame.

O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain.

Temperate temperance is best; intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance.

Frankness is a jewel; only the young can afford it.

Except a person be part coward, it is not a compliment to say he is brave.

As a rule, we go about with masks, we go about looking honest, and we are able to conceal ourselves all through the day.

No man is straitly honest to any but himself and God.

I would much prefer to suffer from the clean incision of an honest lancet than from a sweetened poison.

Yes, even I am dishonest. Not in many ways, but in some. Forty-one, I think it is.