"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
— Mark Twain

"'Classic' - a book which people praise and don't read."
— Mark Twain

"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
— Mark Twain

"The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time."
— Mark Twain

"There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics."
— Benjamin Disraeli

"I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
— Mark Twain

"I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them."
— Mark Twain

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."
— Mark Twain

"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR
per
G.G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCE"
— Mark Twain (The Adventures of Huck Finn)

"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."
— Mark Twain

"And there was that letter from the Bramleys—that really made me feel good. You don’t find people like the Bramleys now; radio, television and the motorcar have carried the outside world into the most isolated places so that the simple people you used to meet on the lonely farms are rapidly becoming like people anywhere else. There are still a few left, of course—old folk who cling to the ways of their fathers and when I come across any of them I like to make some excuse to sit down and talk with them and listen to the old Yorkshire words and expressions which have almost disappeared."
— James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small)

"To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?"
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by frost."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have. The course of history shows us that as a government grows, liberty decreases."
— Thomas Jefferson

"Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom."
— Thomas Jefferson

"On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock."
— Thomas Jefferson

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
— Thomas Jefferson

"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."
— Thomas Jefferson

"I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
— Thomas Jefferson

"But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine."
— Thomas Jefferson

"The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations."
— Thomas Jefferson

"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?"
— Thomas Jefferson

"Never put off for tomorrow, what you can do today."
— Thomas Jefferson

"To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude."
— Thomas Jefferson

"Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society."
— Thomas Jefferson

"That government is best which governs least, because its people discipline themselves. If we are directed from Washington (heads of an organization) when to sow and when to reap, we will soon want for bread."
— Thomas Jefferson

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. "
— Thomas Jefferson

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
— Thomas Jefferson

"The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors."
— Thomas Jefferson

"There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people."
— Thomas Jefferson

"One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results."
— Milton Friedman

"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
— Milton Friedman

"When unions get higher wages for their members by restricting entry into an occupation, those higher wages are at the expense of other workers who find their opportunities reduced. When government pays its employees higher wages, those higher wages are at the expense of the taxpayer. But when workers get higher wages and better working conditions through the free market, when they get raises by firm competing with one another for the best workers, by workers competing with one another for the best jobs, those higher wages are at nobody's expense. They can only come from higher productivity, greater capital investment, more widely diffused skills. The whole pie is bigger - there's more for the worker, but there's also more for the employer, the investor, the consumer, and even the tax collector.

That's the way the free market system distributes the fruits of economic progress among all people. That's the secret of the enormous improvements in the conditions of the working person over the past two centuries."
— Milton Friedman (Free to Choose: A Personal Statement)

"Governments never learn. Only people learn."
— Milton Friedman

""The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy." "
— Milton Friedman

"“It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.” "
— -Murray N. Rothbard

"Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake. "
— Victor Hugo

"No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come."
— Victor Hugo

"Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees."
— Victor Hugo

"He who opens a school door, closes a prison."
— Victor Hugo

"Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket."
— Victor Hugo (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame)

"Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them."
— Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)

"There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it."
— Bertrand Russell

"It’s amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites. "
— Thomas Sowell

"Can you cite one speck of hard evidence of the benefits of "diversity" that we have heard gushed about for years? Evidence of its harm can be seen — written in blood — from Iraq to India, from Serbia to Sudan, from Fiji to the Philippines. It is scary how easily so many people can be brainwashed by sheer repetition of a word.
"
— Thomas Sowell

"Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good."
— Thomas Sowell

"What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies."
— Aristotle

"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom."
— Aristotle

"Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way - that is not easy."
— Aristotle

"The Law is Reason free from Passion."
— Aristotle