Almost every famous person at least once in their life said something that was remembered by the society, and considered meaningful, important or just funny. Those quotations can be mentioned in various situations. Often they are used in speeches or in a humorous way. In order to find some of them grub around.
Mark twain
Date: September 10, 2007
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.
Good breeding consists of concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
I have never examined the subject of humor until now. I am surprised to find how much ground it covers. I have got its divisions and frontiers down on a piece of paper. I find it defined as a production of the brain, as the power of the brain to produce something humorous, and the capacity of percieving humor.
When I was fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have him around. When I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
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 is noble to teach oneself, it is still nobler to teach others.
Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the things which were sacred to other people.
It is easier to stay out than get out.
If you take a dog which is starving and feed him and make him prosperous, that dog will not bite you. This is the primary difference between a dog and a man.
The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible.
Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
At the beginning of a great national change, the patriot is a scarce man: scorned, ridiculed and forgotten. When his cause succeeds, however, all men will join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.
Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it - namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.
In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.
Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.
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.
Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough.
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.
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.
Get your facts first and then you can distort them as much as you wish.
Fleas can be taught nearly anything a congressman can.
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence -- and then success is sure.
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g
j" anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud
hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
Great people are those who make others feel that they, too, can become great.
Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked.
Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
If we had less statemanship we could get along with fewer battleships.
Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
I am prepared to meet anyone, but whether anyone is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
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.
Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.
Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.
It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.
I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time.
Good breeding consists of concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession, what there is of it.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
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.
The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.
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.
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
I never could tell a lie that anybody would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.
Providence protects children and idiots. I know because I have tested it.
In our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.
Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
[Mankind] is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy handful is right, sometimes wrong, but no matter, the crowd follows it.
What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.
Carlyle said, "A lie cannot live"; it shows he did not know how to tell them.
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
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.
Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.
Principles have no real force except when one is well fed.
I did it partly because it was worth it, but mostly because I shall never have to do it again.
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.
A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be led by the nose.
The best coffee in Europe is Vienna coffee, compared to which all other coffee is fluid poverty.
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.
Our opinions do not really blossom into fruition until we have expressed them to someone else.
Virtue has never been as respectable as money.
It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.
Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.
The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
In Marseilles they make half the toilet soap we consume in America, but the Marseillaise only have a vague theoretical idea of its use, which they have obtained from books of travel.
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.
Sacred cows make the best hamburgers.
Never tell the truth to those unworthy of it....
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.
It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them.
Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than on all other days of the year put together. This proves, by the numbers left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so.
Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you: the one to slander you, and the other to bring the news to you.
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.
Those that respect the law and love sausage should watch neither being made.
If a person offend you and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures. Simply watch your chance and hit him with a brick.
"One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principle one was that they escaped teething.
I never write Metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get the same money for cop.
The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.
There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.
Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of his atlantic with his verb in his mouth.
I can live two months on a good compliment.
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.
[He was] a solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.
Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards
My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed 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.
Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
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.
Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.
Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.
Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge.
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.
"Familiarity breeds contempt - and children.
If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill always came together, who would escape hanging?
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.
Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.
There ought to be a room in every house to swear in.
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.
It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you: the one to slander you, and the other to get the news to you.
[Humanity] has unquestionably one really effective weaponlaughter. Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecutionthese can lift at a colossal humbugpush it a littleweaken 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.
Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.
I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts.
Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.
There are times when one would like to end the whole human race, and finish the farce.
Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
I did not attend his funeral, but I wrote a nice letter saying I approved it.
In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
Sane and intelligent human beings are like all other human beings, and carefully and cautiously and diligently conceal their private real opinions from the world and give out fictitious ones in their stead for general consumption.
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it--and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit on a hot stove lid again--and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.
"When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.
It has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain when awake.
There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy bad principles and recreate good ones; it can lift men to angelship.
It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
How come we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre but they are more deadly in the long run.
The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.
The holy passion of Friendship is so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.
Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds upon the heel that crushes it.
A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he needs.
It could probably be show by facts and figures that there is no distinctively native American criminal class except Congress.
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
Of the delights of this world, man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven.
When in doubt, tell the truth.
We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles.
We all have thoughts that would shame the devil.
Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. (Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.)
Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
Of the delights of this world man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven.
Those who say truth is stranger than fiction have wasted their time on poorly written fiction.
Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of.
We are always too busy for our children; we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them; but the most precious gift, our personal association, which means so much to them, we give grudgingly.
Somewhere between the Angels and the French lies the rest of humanity.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.
I was born modest. Not all over, but in spots.
George Washington as a boy was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth - he could not even lie.
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 of them.
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please
I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.
The report of my death was an exaggeration.
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
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.
How little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have earned it.
The idea that no gentleman ever swears is all wrong; he can swear and still be a gentleman if he does it in a nice and benevolent and affectionate way.
Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
I have spent most of my time worrying about thigs that have never happened.
We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Adam, the first great benefactor of the human race: he brought death into the world.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.
If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be - a Christian.
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to.
Are you so unobservant that you do not yet realize that sanity and hapiness are an impossible combination?
Golf is a good walk, ruined.
A patriot is mocked, scorned and hated; yet when his cause succeeds, all men will join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.
October is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. Others are July, January, April, September, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
When you cannot get a compliment any other way pay yourself one.
Familiarity breeds contempt - and children.