No one can tell me what is a good cigar--for me. I am the only judge... There are no standards--no real standards. Each man's preference is the only standard for him, the only one which he can accept, the only one which can command him.
I have learned that there lies dormant in the souls of all men a penchant for some particular musical instrument an an unsuspected yearning to play on it, which are bound to wake up an demand attention someday. Therefore you who rail at such that disturb your slumbers with unsuccessful and demoralizing attempts to subjugate a guitar, beware! For sooner or later your own time will come.
The symbol of the race ought to be a human being carrying an ax, for every human being has one concealed about him somewhere, and is always seeking the opportunity to grind it.
Jane Austen's books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.
He had an uncommon fondness for cats. As an old man summering in New Hampshire, Twain even rented kittens from a nearby farm to keep him company until he returned home. "If man could be crossed with the cat," said Twain, "it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat." There's always something about your success that displeases even your best friends.
Even popularity can be overdone. In Rome, along at first, you are full of regrets that Michelangelo died; but by and by, you only regret that you didn't see him do it.