Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Quotes

• A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

• A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.

• Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.

• Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

• Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

• Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

• Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

• Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.

• 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.

• Each man must for himself alone decide 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 against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let me label you as they may.

• Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.

• Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.

• Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

• The reason we hold truth in such respect is because we have so little opportunity to get familiar with it.

• Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heal that has crushed it.

• George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.

• Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

• Golf is a good walk spoiled.

• Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.

• Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritation and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.