“If there wasn't anything to find out, it would be dull. Even trying to find out and not finding out is just as interesting as trying to find out and finding out; and I don't know but more so.”
-Mark Twain

It’s impossible to know everything, and dangerous to think you do. But to remain curious, there’s the thing.

And if wanting to know as much about everything as you can doesn’t make the world a more interesting place, it might make you more interesting to the world.  

When an honest writer discovers an imposition it is his simple duty to strip it bare and hurl it down from its place of honor, no matter who suffers by it; any other course would render him unworthy of the public confidence.
-Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad

The writer is best when he is the impostor's worst enemy.

Image source courtesy of twainquotes.com

“If we would learn what the human race really is at bottom, we need only observe it in election times.”
-Mark Twain, Autobiography

Elections reflect the highest ideals of society, executed by the lowest means of human nature.  

”The rain …falls upon the just and the unjust alike; a thing which would not happen if I were superintending the rain's affairs. No, I would rain softly and sweetly on the just, but if I caught a sample of the unjust outdoors I would drown him.”
-Mark Twain

It doesn't always seem as if everyone gets the justice they deserve, whether it be the sweet justice of a life well-lived or the terrible kind descending down upon the heads of the mean and wicked.

We may not always think it right, but justice, like the rain, will find its way – and will fall upon everyone’s head eventually.

“There isn't a rich man in your vast city who doesn't perjure himself every year before the tax board.”
-Mark Twain

Many a tall tale will be told today.

“We build a fire in a powder magazine, then double the fire department to put it out. We inflame wild beasts with the smell of blood, and then innocently wonder at the wave of brutal appetite that sweeps the land as a consequence.”
-Mark Twain, 1907 speech

It’s the same old story. Playing with fire and wondering why it burns. 

“If any man has just merciful and kindly instincts he would be a gentleman, for he would need nothing else in the world.”
-Mark Twain, Layman’s Sermon

A gentleman gives to the world more than he takes, and thinks nothing of it.

“People commonly use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post; for support rather than illumination.”
– Mark Twain (attributed)

95% of those polled think I’m a genius. And statistics never lie.

“Morals consist of political morals, commercial morals, ecclesiastical morals, and morals.”
-Mark Twain

Strangely, it is not unique. That men wear on their sleeve's the morals that they preach, but not the morals that they actually live by. Often it leads to self-destruction.

That’s why it is often best to steer clear of those that shout their morality too loud, for they likely know all too well of what they speak…

“The captain had been telling how, in one of his Arctic voyages, it was so cold that the mate's shadow froze fast to the deck and had to be ripped loose by main strength. And even then he got only about two-thirds of it back.”
-Mark Twain, Following the Equator

It’s more than “a chill”. When it gets cold, arctic cold, funny things happen. It’s a kind of cold that hardens and bites all it touches. The very air you breathe turns crystalline, like fine beads of tiny white diamonds. 

Everything turns to ice if you’re out in it long enough.

Even your own shadow.

Photo from the first edition of Following the Equator – Source: TwainQuotes.com