I could probably fill every page of this blog since I first started with the great things that Mark Twain said or wrote, but I’ll limit myself today to just a fraction:

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

“As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep and never to refrain when awake.”

“Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody”

“I apologize for such a long letter – I didn’t have time to write a short one.”

“A wise man does not waste so good a commodity as lying for naught.”

“God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”

“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 man.”

“Each of you, for himself or herself, by himself or herself, and on his or her own responsibility, must speak. It is a solemn and weighty responsibility and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government or politician. Each must decide for himself or herself alone what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man, to decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor. It is traitorous both against yourself and your country.
Let men label you as they may, if you alone of all the nation decide one way, and that way be the right way by your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country, hold up your head for you have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”

“What would men be without women? Scarce, sir…mighty scarce.”

“But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?”

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

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

“There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”

“I knew a man who grabbed a cat by the tail and learned forty percent more about cats than the man who didn’t.”

“All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.”

“If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.”

“I was educated once – it took me years to get over it.”

“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.”