Mark Twain

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man's.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.

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

I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

It is by the goodness of god that in our country we have those 3 unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.

If books are not good company, where shall I find it?

Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.

I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.

I must have a prodigious amount of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up!

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.

A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.

In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.

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

There isn't time, so brief is life, for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving, and but an instant, so to speak, for that.