Mark Twain

I am prepared to meet anyone, but whether anyone is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

 Mark Twain, in  Altruism and Cynicism

I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

 Mark Twain, in  Art and Literature

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

 Mark Twain, in  Wisdom and Ignorance

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said, "I don't know."

 Mark Twain, in  Wisdom and Ignorance

I'm opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

 Mark Twain, in  Wealth and Poverty

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

 Mark Twain, in  Vice and Virtue

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.

 Mark Twain, in  Vice and Virtue

In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.

 Mark Twain, in  Wisdom and Ignorance

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.

 Mark Twain, in  Law and Politics

It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

 Mark Twain, in  Work and Recreation

Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.

 Mark Twain, in  Art and Literature

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

 Mark Twain, in  Life and Death and  Vice and Virtue

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.

 Mark Twain, (inscription beneath his bust in the Hall of Fame), in  Law and Politics

Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to.

 Mark Twain, in  Altruism and Cynicism

Never tell the truth to those unworthy of it.

 Mark Twain, in  Altruism and Cynicism

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

 Mark Twain, in  Law and Politics

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

 Mark Twain, What is Man?, 1906, in  Altruism and Cynicism

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

 Mark Twain, in  Happiness and Misery

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

 Mark Twain, in  Wisdom and Ignorance

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 harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

 Mark Twain, in  Success and Failure