When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man's moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?
Mark TwainGolden rule: Made of hard metal so it could stand severe wear, it not being known at that time that butter would answer.
Mark TwainTo lodge all power in one party and keep it there is to insure bad government and the sure and gradual deterioration of the public morals.
Mark TwainIn India, 'cold weather' is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy.
Mark TwainFrance has neither winter, nor summer, nor morals. France is miserable because it is filled with Frenchmen, and Frenchmen are miserable because they live in France.
Mark TwainThere is nothing in either savage or civilized history that is more utterly complete, more remorselessly sweeping than the Father of Mercyยดs campaign among the Midianites. The official report deals only in masses, all the virgins, all the men, all the babies. all ยดcreatures that breathe,ยด all houses. all cities. It gives you just one vast picture ...as far as the eye can reach, of charred ruins and storm-swept desolation... Would you expect this same conscienceless God, this moral bankrupt, to become a teacher of morals, of gentleness, of meekness, of righteousness, of purity?
Mark TwainThere is in life only one moment and in eternity only one. It is so brief that it is represented by the fleeting of a luminous mote through the thin ray of sunlight - and it is visible but a fraction of a second. The moments that preceded it have been lived, are forgotten and are without value; the moments that have not been lived have no existence and will have no value except in the moment that each shall be lived. While you are asleep you are dead; and whether you stay dead an hour or a billion years the time to you is the same.
Mark Twain