Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.

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

It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.

Man was made at the end of the week’s work, when God was tired.

The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.

All emotion is involuntary when genuine.

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

If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.

Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.

I never smoke to excess – that is, I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time.

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

Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.

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

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.

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

Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.

One can enjoy a rainbow without necessarily forgetting the forces that made it.

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

The modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism is loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

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

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.

A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.

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.

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

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

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.

I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’

But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most, our one fellow and brother who most needed a friend yet had not a single one, the one sinner among us all who had the highest and clearest right to every Christian’s daily and nightly prayers, for the plain and unassailable reason that his was the first and greatest need, he being among sinners the supremest?

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

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

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

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

Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.

Let us endeavor so to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.

Everything has its limit – iron ore cannot be educated into gold.

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.

Necessity is the mother of taking chances.

Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.

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

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

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

I can live for two months on a good compliment.

All generalizations are false, including this one.

The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

We have the best government that money can buy.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics.

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.

When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.

I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any.

Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.

I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.

The more you explain it, the more I don’t understand it.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.

‘Classic.’ A book which people praise and don’t read.

My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.

Man is the only animal that blushes – or needs to.

Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.

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

The lack of money is the root of all evil.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

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

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

If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.

Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.

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

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.

Optimist: day dreamer more elegantly spelled.

Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

When in doubt tell the truth.

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

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

How superbly brave is the Englishman in the presence of the awfulest forms of danger and death; and how abject in the presence of any

An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before. An American is a person who does things because they haven’t