Never learn to do anything: if you don’t learn, you’ll always find someone
else to do it for you.
Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul.
Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing, it was here first.
Have a place for everything and keep the thing somewhere else; this is not a piece of advice, it is merely a custom.
It’s a good idea to obey all the rules when you’re young just so you’ll have the strength to break them when you’re old.
Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
Always obey your superiors--if you have any.
In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.
There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.
Too much of anything is bad, but too much of good whiskey is barely enough.
We ought never to do wrong when people are looking.
Let us not be too particular: it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.
Do something every day that you don’t want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.
If a person offends you, and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures; simply watch your chance and hit him with a brick.
If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.
Always acknowledge a fault frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
All you need to be assured of success in this life is ignorance and confidence.
There is no use in your walking five miles to fish when you can depend on being just as unsuccessful near home.
Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.
It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre but they are more deadly in the long run.
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
Be careful to get out of an experience all the wisdom that is in it--not like the cat that sits down on a hot stove. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again--and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.