Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson

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.

Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson

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

Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)

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

Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)

Our opinions do not really blossom into fruition until we have expressed them to someone else.

Mark Twain, quoted in Mark Twain and I, Opie Read, 1940

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

Mark Twain, Speech in New York, Nov. 20, 1900

It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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

Mark Twain, The Diaries of Adam and Eve

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

Mark Twain, The Gorky Incident

[Humanity] has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug—push it a little—weaken it a little, century by century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.