Mark Twain Quotes
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The late Bill Nye once said 'I have been told that Wagner's music is better than it sounds.'
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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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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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Brooklyn praise is half slander.
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...a revolutionist in my sympathies, by birth, by breeding and by principle. I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute...
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Nearly all black and brown skins are beautiful, but a beautiful white skin is rare.
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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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If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.
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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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The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.
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There has never been a Protestant boy nor a Protestant girl whose mind the Bible has not soiled.
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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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'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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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?
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Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.
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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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In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
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It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right.
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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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This poor little one-horse town.
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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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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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Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
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A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.