the Mark of Twain

It is the prohibition that makes anything precious.

We all live in the protection of certain cowardice's which we call our principles.

Human pride is not worthwhile; there is always something lying in wait to take the wind out of it.

There is more real pleasure to be gotten out of a malicious act, where your heart is in it, than out of thirty acts of a nobler sort.

Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.

I said there was but one solitary thing about the past worth remembering and that was the fact that it is past -- can't be restored.

For the majority of us, the past is a regret, the future an experiment

Distance lends enchantment to the view.

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

Knowledge is worth more than anything there is in the world; it's what makes great men and good men; you'll be a great man and a good man yourself someday.

But the truth is, that when a Library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me.

To believe yourself brave is to be brave; it is the one only essential thing.

We think boys are rude, insensitive animals but it is not so in all cases. Each boy has one or two sensitive spots, and if you can find out where they are located you have only to touch them and you can scorch him as with fire.

You can't reach old age by another man's road. My habits protect my life but they would assassinate you.

There are three things which I consider excellent advice. First, don't smoke to access. Second, don't drink to excess. Third, don't marry to excess.

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.