Mark Twain

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

Many lack the originality to lack originality.

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

The trouble is not in dying for a friend, but in finding a friend worth dying for.

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.

The very ink in which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

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

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

If animals could speak, mankind would weep.

Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive, but it is lightning that does the work.