Quotes from Mark Twain

Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense.

There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press

It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.

A discriminating irreverence is the creator and protector of human liberty.

The highest pleasure to be got out of freedom, and having nothing to do, is labor.

Hotels are the only proper places for lecturers. When I am ill-natured I so enjoy the freedom of a hotel where I can ring up a domestic and give him a quarter and then break furniture over him.

There ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.

Eating and sleeping are the only activities that should be allowed to interrupt a man's enjoyment of his cigar.

Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?

Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.

He had the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.

A man with a hump-backed uncle mustn't make fun of another man's cross-eyed aunt

I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.

What ought to be done to the man who invented the celebrating of anniversaries? Mere killing would be too light.

The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.

The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work.

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.

I admire the serene assurance of those who have religious faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.

Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old.

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

A baby is an inestimable blessing and bother.

Wagner's music is better than it sounds.