If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.

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

History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.

They did not know it was impossible, so they did it!

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

I've never killed a man, but I've read many an obituary with a great deal of satisfaction.

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.

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

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.

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

The loud little handful will shout for war. The pulpit will warily and cautiously protest at first…The great mass of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes, and will try to make out why there should be a war, and they will say earnestly and indignantly: "It is unjust and dishonorable and there is no need for war." Then the few will shout even louder…Before long you will see a curious thing: anti-war speakers will be stoned from the platform, and free speech will be strangled by hordes of furious men who still agree with the speakers but dare not admit it ... Next, statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.