"The lie, as a virtue, a principle,..." - Quote by Mark Twain

“In Marseilles they make half the toilet soap we consume in America, but the Marseillaise only have a vague theoretical idea of its use, which they have obtained from books of travel.”

“There's always something about your success that displeases even your best friends.”

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

“The lie is a condition of life.”

“The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.”

“He who does not lie does not know what truth is.”

“Manners or etiquette ('accessibility, affability, politeness, refinement, propriety, courtesy, and ingratiating and captivating behavior') call for no large measure of moral determination and cannot, therefore, be reckoned as virtues. Even though manners are no virtues, they are a means of developing virtue.... The more we refine the crude elements in our nature, the more we improve our humanity and the more capable it grows of feeling the driving force of virtuous principles.”

“Whether a man hides his bad qualities and vices or confesses them openly, his vanity wants to gain an advantage by it in both cases: just note how subtly he distinguishes between those he will hide his bad qualities from and those he will face honestly and candidly.”

“Most of our difficulties come from losing contact with our instincts, with the age-old forgotten wisdom stored up in us.”