"Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are economical in its use."

"Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand."

"When they came it was as if the lord of the world had arrived, and had brought all the glories of its kingdoms along; and when they went they left a calm behind which was like the deep sleep which follows an orgy."

"There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice."

"From his cradle to the grave a man never does a single thing which has any first and foremost object save one-to secure peace of mind spiritual comfort for himself."

"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."

"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why."

"Make it a point to 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."

"A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo and doesn't."

"An oyster has hardly any more reasoning power than a scientist has; and so it it is reasonably certain that this one jumped to the conclusion that the nineteen million years was a preparation for him; but that would be just like an oyster, which is the most conceited animal there is, except man. And anyway, this one could not know, at that early date, that he was only an incident in a scheme, and that there was some more in the scheme yet."

"A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read."

"If I were to construct a God I would furnish Him with some way and qualities and characteristics which the Present lacks."

"The joy of killing! the joy of seeing killing done - these are traits of the human race at large."

"Humor is tragedy plus time."

"That's the difference between governments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do."

"The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell together, as quickly as possible."

"Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest."

"I am persuaded that a coldly-thought-out and independent verdict upon a fashion in clothes, or manners, or literature, or politics, or religion, or any other matter that is projected into the field of our notice and interest, is a most rare thing -- if it has indeed ever existed."

"Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain't got no business doing wrong when he ain't ignorant and knows better."

"The perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy is to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our capacities, we will then be a happy and a virtuous people."

"All right, then, I'll go to hell."

"I always take Scotch whiskey at night as a preventive of toothache. I have never had the toothache; and what is more, I never intend to have it."

"Satan must have been pretty simple, even according to the New Testament, or he wouldn't have led Christ up on a high mountain and offered him the world if he would fall down and worship him. That was a manifestly absurd proposition, because Christ, as the Son of God, already owned the world; and besides, what Satan showed him was only a few rocky acres of Palestine. It is just as if some one should try to buy Rockefeller, the owner of all the Standard Oil Company, with a gallon of kerosene."

"When angry, count four. When very angry, swear."

"Such is the human race, often it seems a pity that Noah... didn't miss the boat."

"Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired."

"In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours."

"Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation."

"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."

"Satan had been making admiring remarks about certain of the Creator's sparkling industries -- remarks which, being read between the lines, were sarcasms."

"We wish to learn all the curious, outlandish ways of all the different countries, so that we can "show off" and astonish people when we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our untraveled friends with our strange foreign fashions which we can't shake off."

"Have a place for everything and keep the things somewheres else. That is not advice it is merely custom."

"That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it."

"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."

"Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself."

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

"The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also."

"Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one."

"The weakest of all weak things is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire."

"I never let schooling interfere with my education."

"Human nature appears to be just the same, all over the world."

"A person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was gitting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn't ever going to grow dim or doubtful."

"The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter."

"They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than President of the United States forever."

"Now he found out a new thing--namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing."

"I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatsoever."

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

"We have the best government that money can buy."

"If we would learn what the human race really is at bottom, we need only observe it in election times."

"If I had the remaking of man, he wouldn't have any conscience. It is one of the most disagreeable things connected with a person; and although it certainly does a great deal of good, it cannot be said to pay, in the long run; it would be much better to have less good and more comfort."