The thinner the ice, the more anxious is everyone to see whether it will bear.

Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.

Life is short, but it's long enough to ruin any man who wants to be ruined.

One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness.

There are people who are always anticipating trouble, and in this way they manage to enjoy many sorrows that never really happen to them.

Take all the fools out of this world and there wouldn't be any fun living in it, or profit.

If a man should happen to reach perfection in this world, he would have to die immediately to enjoy himself.

If there was no faith there would be no living in this world. We could not even eat hash with any safety.

Knowledge is like money: the more he gets, the more he craves.

Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist: it reduces him to his fighting weight.

It ain't often that a man's reputation outlasts his money.

Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.

There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together.

Genius ain't anything more than elegant common sense.

There is no greater evidence of superior intelligence than to be surprised at nothing.

Confess your sins to the Lord and you will be forgiven; confess them to man and you will be laughed at.

To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.

Don't ever prophesy; for if you prophesy wrong, nobody will forget it; and if you prophesy right, nobody will remember it.

There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.

There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory.

A puppy plays with every pup he meets, but an old dog has few associates.

It is not all bad, this getting old, ripening. After the fruit has got its growth it should juice up and mellow. God forbid I should live long enough to ferment and rot and fall to the ground in a squash.

Most people when they come to you for advice, come to have their own opinions strengthened, not corrected.

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself.

As a general thing, when a woman wears the pants in a family, she has a good right to them.

Marrying for love may be a bit risky, but it is so honest that God can't help but smile on it.

Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet all the honesty in the world ain't lawful tender for a loaf of bread.

It is a very delicate job to forgive a man, without lowering him in his own estimation, and yours too.

Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.

Most people repent their sins by thanking God they ain't so wicked as their neighbors.

If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it, as the old woman did her lost spectacles, safe on her own nose all the time.

The best medicine I know for rheumatism is to thank the Lord that it ain't gout.

About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.

There is nothing so easy to learn as experience and nothing so hard to apply.

The man whose only pleasure in life is making money, weighs less on the moral scale than an angleworm.

Wisdom has never made a bigot, but learning has.

The best time for you to hold your tongue is the time you feel you must say something or bust.

Woman's influence is powerful, especially when she wants something.

I have lived in this world just long enough to look carefully the second time into things that I am most certain of the first time.

Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius.

There are two kinds of fools: those who can't change their opinions and those who won't.

Men mourn for what they have lost; women for what they ain't got.

There's a lot of people in this world who spend so much time watching their health that they haven't the time to enjoy it.

The wheel that squeaks the loudest is the one that gets the grease.

Advice is like castor oil, easy enough to give but dreadful uneasy to take.

Words are often seen hunting for an idea, but ideas are never seen hunting for words.

Learning sleeps and snores in libraries, but wisdom is everywhere, wide awake, on tiptoe.

Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.

It's not only the most difficult thing to know one's self, but the most inconvenient.