Mark Twain Quotes
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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.
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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.'
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Enough, enough, enough! Say no more! Lump the whole thing! say that the Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo!
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In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
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Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.
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The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.
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Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
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George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.
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To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.
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Appendix D, The Awful German Language
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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.
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Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
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Brooklyn praise is half slander.
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Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
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I am always reading immoral books on the sly, and then selfishly trying to prevent other people from having the same wicked good time.
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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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'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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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 was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.
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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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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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It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right.
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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.