Some of my favorite thoughts from this American original. Let me know which ones resonate with you...
There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress.
When in doubt tell the truth.
The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.
It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Senator: a person who makes laws in Washington when not doing time.
Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.
It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
If we would learn what the human race really is at bottom, we need only observe it in election times.
A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.
When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so.
All generalizations are false, including this one.
There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
I never can think of Judas Iscariot without losing my temper. To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature, Congressman.
Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie - I found that out.
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress.
Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
The government of my country snubs honest simplicity, but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two.
Familiarity breeds contempt - and children.
The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heal that has crushed it.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
He is now rising from affluence to poverty.
The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.
Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul.
I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
No country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution, nothing more.
More to come in my next post.
Favorites? Thoughts?
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