1. “If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.”

 

2. “Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.”

 

3. “Definition of a classic — something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”

 

4. “Familiarity breeds contempt — and children.”

 

5. “Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.”

 

6. “Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

 

7. “Man will do many things to get himself loved; he will do all things to get himself envied.”

 

8. “Whenever the human race assembles to a number exceeding four, it cannot stand free speech.”

 

9. “The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal.”

 

10. “Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”

 

11. “Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.”

 

12. “To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add the sheep was a tautology.”

 

13. “Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”

 

14. “Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.”

 

15. “We are always anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.”

 

16. “Citizenship? We have none! In place of it we teach patriotism which Samuel Johnson said a hundred and forty or a hundred and fifty years ago was the last refuge of the scoundrel.”