If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
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Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).
The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.
Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
′Classic′ - a book which people praise and don't read.
The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of 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.
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.
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
God created war so that Americans would learn geography.
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.
But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.
Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
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.
Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.
What would men be without women? Scarce, sir...mighty scarce.
Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
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.
When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.
Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.
You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
The trouble is not in dying for a friend, but in finding a friend worth dying for.
If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.
Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.
The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.
The secret to getting ahead is getting started.
The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.
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.
If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.
April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Out of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most.
I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.
When angry, count four. When very angry, swear.
I must have a prodigious amount of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up!
Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.
I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.
The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.
Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.
To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.
The most interesting information come from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.
Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.
Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.
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.
Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
The Bible has noble poetry in it... and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies.
Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times.
The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man's.
There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.
I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't.
Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.
Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.
Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages.
My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.
Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.
It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart: the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.
There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.
I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.
All right, then, I'll go to hell.
In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.
If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be—a Christian.
Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.
Obscurity and a competence—that is the life that is best worth living.
Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.
