Mark Twain Quotes
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Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.
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Always acknowledge a fault frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you opportunity to commit more.
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Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
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In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.
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He George Washington Cable has taught me to abhor and detest the Sabbath day and hunt up new and troublesome ways to dishonor it.
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I think the President is clearly insane in several ways, and insanest upon war and its supreme glories. I think he longs for a big war wherein he can spectacularly perform as chief general and chief admiral, and go down in history as the only monarch of modern times that has served both offices at the same time.
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Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
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Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough.
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Don't let schooling interfere with your education.
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We Americans... bear the ark of liberties of the world.
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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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Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.
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The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.
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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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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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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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William Dean Howells applauded, and was full of praises and endorsement, which was wise in him and judicious. If he had manifested a different spirit I would have thrown him out of the window. I like criticism, but it must be my way.
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Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it.
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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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When grown-up persons indulge in practical jokes, the fact gauges them. They have lived narrow, obscure, and ignorant lives, and at full manhood they still retain and cherish a job lot of left-over standards and ideals that would have been discarded with their boyhood if they had then moved out into the world and a broader life.
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It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
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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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Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
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How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!