Mark Twain Quotes
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Jesus died to save men - a small thing for an immortal to do, & didn't save many, anyway; but if he had been damned for the race that would have been act of a size proper to a god, & would have saved the whole race. However, why should anybody want to save the human race, or damn it either? Does God want its society? Does Satan?
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...when the human race is not grotesque it is because it is asleep and losing its opportunity.
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A critic never made or killed a book or a play. The people themselves are the final judges. It is their opinion that counts. After all, the final test is truth. But the trouble is that most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession and therefore are most economical in its use.
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Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
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Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.
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Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
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I thoroughly disapprove of duels. I consider them unwise and I know they are dangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me now I would go to that man and take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet retired spot and kill him.
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I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can't be any worse.
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In 'Huckleberry Finn,' I have drawn Tom Blankenship exactly as he was. He was ignorant, unwashed, insufficiently fed; but he had as good a heart as ever any boy had.
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The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
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Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
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He says every man is a moon and has a side which he turns toward nobody: you have to slip around behind if you want to see it.
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Mr. Roosevelt is the most formidable disaster that has befallen the country since the Civil War-but the vast mass of the nation loves him, is frantically fond of him, even idolizes him. This is the simple truth. It sounds like a libel upon the intelligence of the human race, but it isn't; there isn't any way to libel the intelligence of the human race.
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Persons who think there is no such thing as luck-good or bad-are entitled to their opinion, although I think they ought to be shot for it.
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There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory.
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Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience - 4000 critics.
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Formerly, if you killed a man, it was possible that you were insane-but now, if you, having friends and money, kill a man, it is evidence that you are a lunatic.
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I wish Europe would let Russia annihilate Turkey a little-not much, but enough to make it difficult to find the place again without a divining-rod or a diving-bell.
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Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
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I started out alone to seek adventures. You don't really have to seek them-that is nothing but a phrase-they come to you.
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I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
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It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.
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...my sister...was an interested and zealous invalid during sixty-five years, tried all the new diseases as fast as they came out, and always enjoyed the newest one more than any that went before; my brother had accumulated forty-two brands of Christianity before he was called away.
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...in October 1866 I broke out as a lecturer, and from that day to this I have always been able to gain my living without doing any work; for the writing of books and magazine matter was always play, not work. I enjoyed it; it was merely billiards to me.