Mark Twain Quotes

Humorists of the 'mere' sort cannot survive. Humor is only a fragrance, a decoration.

There isn't anything so grotesque or so incredible that the average human being can't believe it.

Always tell the truth; then you don't have to remember anything

I deal with temptation by yielding to it.

The law of God, as quite plainly expressed in woman's construction is this: There shall be no limit put upon your intercourse with the other sex sexually, at any time of life. The law of God, as quite plainly expressed in man's construction is this: During your entire life you shall be under inflexible limits and restrictions, sexually. During twenty-three days in every month (in absence of pregnancy) from the time a woman is seven years old till she dies of old age, she is ready for action, and competent. As competent as the candlestick is to receive the candle. Competent every day, competent every night. Also she wants that candle - yearns for it, longs for it, hankers after it, as commanded by the law of God in her heart.

Stars are good too. I wish I could get some to put in my hair. But I suppose I never can. You would be surprised to find how far off they are, for they do not look it. When they first showed last night I tried to knock some down with a pole, but it didn't reach, which astonished me. Then I tried clods till I was all tired out, but I never got one. I did make some close shots, for I saw the black blot of the clod sail right into thee midst of the golden clusters forty or fifty times, just barely missing them, and if I could've held out a little longer, maybe I could've got one.

To gnaw on is human, towards digest, divine.

The peoples furthest from civilization are the ones where equality between man and woman are furthest apart-and we consider this one of the signs of savagery.

Wherefore, I beseech you let the dog and the onions and these people of the strange and godless names work out their several salvations from their piteous and wonderful difficulties without help of mine, for indeed their trouble is sufficient as it is, whereas an I tried to help I should but damage their cause the more and yet mayhap not live myself to see the desolation wrought.

It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing-and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite - that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.

The spirit of wrath - not the words - is the sin; and the spirit of wrath is cursing. We begin to swear before we can talk.

To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...Anybody can have ideas--the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.

Is a person's public and private opinion the same? It is thought there have been instances.

Man is kind enough when he is not excited by religion

You have heretofore found out, by my teachings, that man is a fool; you are now aware that woman is a damned fool.

Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.

In love, you pay as you leave.

The highest pleasure to be got out of freedom, and having nothing to do, is labor.

Well, my book is written-let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying; but now they can't ever be said. And besides, they would require a library-and a pen warmed up in hell.

[Do you worry unnecessarily about the future? Remember most fears are just False Evidence Appearing Real. Don't let unfounded fears rob you of the joys of life or you too will say...] There has been much tragedy in my life; [and] at least half of it actually happened.

We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.

I was educated, I was trained, I was a Presbyterian and I knew how these things are done. I knew that in Biblical times if a man committed a sin the extermination of the whole surrounding nation-cattle and all-was likely to happen. I knew that Providence was not particular about the rest, so that He got somebody connected with the one He was after.

It is easier to stay out than get out.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics.

All human rules are more or less idiotic.

The human being places sexual intercourse above all other joys, but leaves it out of his heaven.

Never tell a lie-except for practice.

Why waste your money looking up your family tree? Just go into politics and your opponent will do it for you.

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.

Probably there is an imperceptible touch of something permanent that one feels instinctively to adhere to true humour, whereas wit may be the mere conversational shooting up of "smartness"--a bright feather, to be blown into space the second after it is launched...Wit seems to be counted a very poor relation to Humour....Humour is never artificial.

Look at the mother of Washington! She raised a boy that could not tell a lie--could not tell a lie! But he never had any chance. It might have been different if he had belonged to the Washington Newspaper Correspondents' Club

There is no such thing as a new idea. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.

Always obey your parents - when they are present.

One may make their house a palace of sham, or they can make it a home, a refuge.

Heaven is the very last place to come to rest and don't you be afraid to bet on that!

France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.

I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.

Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it -- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.

If there was two birds sitting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first.

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

All good things arrive unto them that wait - and don't die in the meantime.

You can never find a Christian who has acquired this valuable knowledge, this saving knowledge, by any process but the everlasting and all-sufficient 'people say.'

Plain question and plain answer make the shortest road out of most perplexities.

If I can capture truth in its simplest form, beauty will follow like a sledgehammer.

What, then, is the true Gospel of consistency? Change. Who is the really consistent man? The man who changes. Since change is the law of his being, he cannot be consistent if he stick in a rut.

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

Armor is heavy, yet it is a proud burden, and a man standeth straight in it.

Tell the truth or trump-but get the trick.