“Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.”

“Familiarity breeds contempt and children.”

“Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessaries.”

“I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English - it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them - then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.”

“When I am king they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved.”

“The lack of money is the root of all evil.”

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

“It usually takes me two or three days to prepare an impromptu speech.”

“Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.”

“It's easy to make friends, but hard to get rid of them.”

“Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.”

“When red-headed people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.”

“He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.”

“When red-headed people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.”

“It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt”

“Write what you know.”

“The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it he knows too little.”

“I take my only exercise acting as a pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercise regularly.”

“I know the look of an apple that is roasting and sizzling on the hearth on a winter's evening, and I know the comfort that comes of eating it hot, along with some sugar and a drench of cream... I know how the nuts taken in conjunction with winter apples, cider, and doughnuts, make old people's tales and old jokes sound fresh and crisp and enchanting.”

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

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

“Distance lends enchantment to the view.”

“A home without a cat — and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat — may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?”

“The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creatures that cannot.”

“There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.”

“Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.”

“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.”

“The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopt.”

“Many public-school children seem to know only two dates—1492 and 4th of July; and as a rule they don't know what happened on either occasion.”

“Great people are those who make others feel that they, too, can become great.”

“No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”

“There is nothing so annoying as having two people talking when you're busy interrupting.”

“for business reasons, I must preserve the outward signs of sanity.”

“The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.”

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

“There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.”

“One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.”

“The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor: he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.”

“Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”

“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. All day long, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, not those of other things, are his history. These are his life, and they are not written. Everyday would make a whole book of 80,000 words -- 365 books a year. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man -- the biography of the man himself cannot be written.”

“Plain question and plain answer make the shortest road out of most perplexities.”

“When we think of friends, and call their faces out of the shadows, and their voices out of the echoes that faint along the corridors of memory, and do it without knowing why save that we love to do it, we content ourselves that that friendship is a Reality, and not a Fancy--that it is builded upon a rock, and not upon the sands that dissolve away with the ebbing tides and carry their monuments with them.”

“In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.”

“If books are not good company, where shall I find it?”

“Wheresoever she was, there was Eden.”

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

“He had had much experience of physicians, and said '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 druther not'.”

“Do something everyday that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.”

“Peace by persuasion has a pleasant sound, but I think we should not be able to work it. We should have to tame the human race first, and history seems to show that that cannot be done.”

“Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge.”