anecdotes

AND NOW, THE WIT AND WISDOM OF SAMUEL LONGHORN CLEMENS aka MARK TWAIN:

To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know because I've done it a thousand times.

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

The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.

I never let schooling interfere with my education.

There are many humorous things in the world: among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages.

It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.

The Public is merely a multiplied "me."

To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.

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

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

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

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.

The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.

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.

Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name BZJXXLLWCP is pronounced Jackson.

Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.

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

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

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

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

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.

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

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

Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.

Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.

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

Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.

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

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

I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

In order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.

Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them.

Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.

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

Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time

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.

People born to be hanged are safe in water.

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession, what there is of it.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.

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

When in doubt, tell the truth.

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 a man.

It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he needs.

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

Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

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

How little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have earned it.

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

There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable, and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.

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

All say, "How hard it is that we have to die" - a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

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

I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.

In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.

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

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.

It is easier to stay out than get out.

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.

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

The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.

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

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

You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

The miracle, or the power, that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application, and perseverance under the prompting of a brave, determined spirit.

The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.

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.

and finally... my personal favorite:

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.