Quotations by Mark Twain I

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

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


I am a democrat only on principle, not by instinct -- nobody is that. Doubtless some people say they are, but this world is grievously given to lying.

I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anybody who can tell me what they want.

It is a time when one's spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death.

What is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man's breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked; that you are beholding what human eye has not seen before; that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To give birth to an idea, to discover a great thought -- an intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a field that many a brain-plough had gone over before. To find a new planet, to invent a new hinge, to find a way to make the lightning carry your messages. To be the first -- that is the idea.

Do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.

Duties are not performed for duty's sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty --the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself.

The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity.

Man will do many things to get himself loved; he will do all things to get himself envied.

Man will do many things to get himself loved; he will do all things to get himself envied.