Mark Twain Quotes
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If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.
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James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London, but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness; the report of my death was an exaggeration.
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It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right.
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Compliments make me vain: & when I am vain, I am insolent & overbearing. It is a pity, too, because I love compliments. I love them even when they are not so. My child, I can live on a good compliment two weeks with nothing else to eat.
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Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
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The minister gave out his text and droned along monotonously through an argument that was so prosy that many a head by and by began to nod - and yet it was an argument that dealt in limitless fire and brimstone and thinned the predestined elect down to a company so small as to be hardly worth the saving.
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It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
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Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.
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'We consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound.
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It is my hope sir, that the ass who invented the 'age of consent'-any age of consent between cradle and grave-is with his progenitors in hell, and that the legislatures that are keeping the resulting law in force will follow him soon.
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We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.
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I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.
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The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives.
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How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!
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A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
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We Americans... bear the ark of liberties of the world.
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The bicycle had what is called the 'wabbles', and had them very badly. In order to keep my position, a good many things were required of me, and in every instance the thing required was against nature. Against nature, but not against the laws of nature.
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This poor little one-horse town.
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Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.
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Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
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I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I’m not feeling so well myself.
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I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo - that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture - great in every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast - for luncheon - for dinner - for tea - for supper - for between meals. I like a change, occasionally.
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God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
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Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.