Mark Twain Quotes
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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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....it is not wise to keep the fire going under a slander unless you can get some large advantage out of keeping it alive. Few slanders can stand the wear of silence.
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Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.
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The highest perfection of politeness is only a beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of ungraceful and gilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying.
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Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.
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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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Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
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Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
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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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Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.
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Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough.
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Appendix D, The Awful German Language
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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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We haven't all had the good fortune to be ladies; we haven't all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground.
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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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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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Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
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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.
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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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Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
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Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
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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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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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Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.