Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.

Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream. (Great writing tip!)

Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did.  So throw off the bowlines!  Sail away from the safe harbor!  Catch the trade winds in your sails!  Explore!  Dream!

Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions.
Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

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

...a solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.

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

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

All you need is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.

Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear -- not absence of fear.

When in doubt, tell the truth.

Let your secret sympathies and your compassion be always with the under dog in the fight -- this is magnanimity; but bet on the other one -- this is business.

One of my theories is that the hearts of men are about alike, all over the world, whatever their skin-complexions may be.

Where prejudice exists, it always discolors our thoughts.

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.

I think a compliment ought always to precede a complaint, where one is possible, because it softens resentment and insures for the complaint a courteous and gentle reception.

Always do right. That will gratify some of the people, and astonish the rest.

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

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.

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.

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.

The difference between truth and fiction: Fiction has to make sense.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.

A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.

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.

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

Don't let schooling interfere with your education.

Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.

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

Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.

Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.

I can live for two months on a good compliment.

If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.

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

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.

My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.

Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.

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