Mark Twain Quotes
-
There has never been a Protestant boy nor a Protestant girl whose mind the Bible has not soiled.
-
As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake.
-
When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.
-
Citing a familiar 'American joke': In Boston they ask, How much does he know? In New York, How much is he worth? In Philadelphia, Who were his parents?
-
Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.
-
You cannot lay bare your private soul and look at it. You are too much ashamed of yourself. It is too disgusting. For that reason I confine myself to drawing the portraits of others.
-
Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
-
Herodotus says, 'Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.'
-
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.
-
No doubt the great majority of them are in the cemetery long ago, and I suppose the rest of us will join them before long. Speaking for myself I am willing; in fact I believe I have been willing ever since I was eighteen years old; not urgent, but willing, merely willing.
-
He George Washington Cable has taught me to abhor and detest the Sabbath day and hunt up new and troublesome ways to dishonor it.
-
Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
-
George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.
-
Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough.
-
Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
-
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.
-
Appendix D, The Awful German Language
-
The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.
-
'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.
-
Brooklyn praise is half slander.
-
Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.
-
If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.
-
It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right.
-
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.