If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.

Dalai Lama XIV, “The Universe in a Single Atom”

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

Leonardo da Vinci

Faith is believing what you know ain't so.

Mark Twain

What God lacks is convictions — stability of character. He ought to be a Presbyterian or a Catholic or something — not try to be everything.

Mark Twain, “Notebook”

The motto stated a lie. If this nation has ever trusted in God, that time has gone by; for nearly half a century almost its entire trust has been in the Republican party and the dollar — mainly the dollar. I recognize that I am only making an assertion and furnishing no proof; I am sorry, but this is a habit of mine; sorry also that I am not alone in it; everybody seems to have this disease.

Mark Twain

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.

Mark Twain

It was not that Adam ate the apple for the apple's sake, but because it was forbidden. It would have been better for us — oh infinitely better for us — if the serpent had been forbidden.

Mark Twain, “Notebook”

A man should not be without morals; it is better to have bad morals than none at all.

Mark Twain, “Notebook”

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

Mark Twain (attr.)

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

Mark Twain

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

Mark Twain

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

Mark Twain, “Following the Equator”

I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.

Mark Twain

If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.

Mark Twain

The older I get, the more clearly I remember things that never happened.

Mark Twain

A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo and doesn't.

Mark Twain

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

Mark Twain

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.

Mark Twain

There are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer them, or turn them into literature.

Mark Twain

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other.

Mark Twain

The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal.

Mark Twain

The only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction needs to be credible.

Mark Twain

I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay their hands on everything they can get.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

Napoleon Bonaparte

There are some few people I respect and admire, but I don't think much of the species.

Mark Twain