Mark Twain

The lack of money is the root of all evil.

The commonest ailment of the human mind is its incapacity to see things as they are, and its capacity to see things as it would like them to be.

Man is a reasoning animal. Such is the claim. I can't find any evidence for it.

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only an American, but a man, and I am not afraid to say it.

The most interesting information is that which is given to you by a person who is not aware that he is giving it to you.

Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.

The church is always trying to get money, and always trying to prove that it is not trying to get money.

I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Man is a Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I beg permission to doubt it.

I have been studying the human race for 40 years and I have not yet come across a man who was not a rascal.

The human race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug—push it a little—weaken it a little, century by century, but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

The trouble with the world is not that people are ignorant, but that they know so many things that ain't so.

I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't.

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only a coward myself but I am not ashamed of it.