Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.
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.
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.
Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.
A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.
Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
The lack of money is the root of all evil.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.
I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.
My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.
The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.
A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
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.
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress.
There is no distinctly American criminal class – except Congress.
Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.
Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.
Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
All generalizations are false, including this one.
When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.
It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
We have the best government that money can buy.
There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
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.
Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.
Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
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.
If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.
Honesty is the best policy – when there is money in it.
I’ve never let my school interfere with my education.
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.
Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
I can live for two months on a good compliment.
Laws control the lesser man… Right conduct controls the greater one.
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.
Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.
It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.
Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
Man was made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired.
Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
Don’t tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.
It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.
Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.
Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.
Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.
If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.
Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul.
A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.
The Christian’s Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.
If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.
She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.
Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.
A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
When red-haired people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.
There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one – keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.
Better a broken promise than none at all.
It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.
Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.
I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.
When in doubt tell the truth.
Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.
What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.
Such is the human race, often it seems a pity that Noah… didn’t miss the boat.
Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.
The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.
All right, then, I’ll go to hell.
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.
The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.
‘Classic.’ A book which people praise and don’t read.
Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.
Everything has its limit – iron ore cannot be educated into gold.
The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.
Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.
Man is the only animal that blushes – or needs to.
The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
The more you explain it, the more I don’t understand it.
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.
Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
Familiarity breeds contempt – and children.
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.
When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.
There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.
Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
The educated Southerner has no use for an ‘r’, except at the beginning of a word.
Man – a creature made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired.
I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.
Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.
The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.
Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered – either by themselves or by others.
Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial ‘we.’
It is easier to stay out than get out.
It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.
Don’t say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.
When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.
Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.
There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.
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.
The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.
The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.
The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives.
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
I never let schooling interfere with my education.
Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.
George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.
I have made it a rule never to smoke more that one cigar at a time.
Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.
Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.
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.
As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake.
The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.
Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation.
Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.
Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
We Americans… bear the ark of liberties of the world.
Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
We are all alike, on the inside.
Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.
Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.
He is now rising from affluence to poverty.
Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.
I make it a rule never to smoke while I’m sleeping.
The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.
To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.
Prosperity is the best protector of principle.
The Public is merely a multiplied ‘me.’
What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.
Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.
