Mark Twain

The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is being attacked, and every man will be glad of these conscience-soothing falsities

When I was fourteen years old, I was amazed at how unintelligent my father was. By the time I turned twenty-one, I was astounded how much he had learned in the last seven years.

There is no security in life, only opportunity.

The self taught man seldom knows anything accurately, and he does not know a tenth as much as he could have known if he had worked under teachers, and besides, he brags, and is the means of fooling other thoughtless people into going and doing as he himself has done.

An open mind leaves a chance for someone to drop a worthwhile thought in it.

If we were meant to talk more than listen, we would have two mouths and one ear.

But we are all insane, anyway ... The suicides seem to be the only sane people.

Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.

There are no standards of taste in wine... Each man's own taste is the standard, and a majority vote cannot decide for him or in any slightest degree affect the supremacy of his own standard.

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

Always obey your parents - when they are present.

There is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought -a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!

Prohibition only drives drunkenness behind doors and into dark places, and does not cure it or even diminish it.

A baby is an inestimable blessing and bother.

Most people can't bear to sit in church for an hour on Sundays. How are they supposed to live somewhere very similar to it for eternity?

An author values a compliment even when it comes from a source of doubtful competency.

Don't wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

A sense of humor is the one thing no one will admit to not having.

One may make their house a palace of sham, or they can make it a home, a refuge.

My mother had a slender, small body, but a large heart-a heart so large that everybody's joys found welcome in it, and hospitable accommodation.

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them.