I always loved reading Mark Twain as a child and through my youth.
Some of his quotes:
�Don�t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.�

�You can�t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.�

�If you don�t read the newspaper, you�re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you�re�mis-informed.�

�Out of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most.�

�A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.�

�When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.�

�It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.�

�Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.�

�Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.�

�It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.�

�Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.�

�Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.�

�It�s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt�

�In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.�

�Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts or happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever flowing through one�s head.�

�Worrying is like paying a debt you don�t owe.�

�It�s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.�

�Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessaries.�