Mark Twain Quotes

That is a simple rule, and easy to remember. When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious matters.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

Tough times teach trust.

Among other common lies, we have the silent lie - the deception which one conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth. Many obstinate truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if they speak no lie, they lie not at all.

Sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn't roosting comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said, take a chicken when you get achance, because if you don't want him yourself you can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't ever forgot. I never see papa when he didn't want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway.

As a rule we develop a borrowed European idea forward, and ... Europe develops a borrowed American idea backwards.

Eventually, I sickened of people, myself included, who didn't think enough of themselves to make something of themselves- people who did only what they had to and never what they could have done. I learned from them the infected loneliness that comes at the end of every misspent day. I knew I could do better.

The election makes me think of a story of a man who was dying. He had only two minutes to live, so he sent for a clergyman and asked him, "Where is the best place to go to?" He was undecided about it. So the minister told him that each place had its advantages--heaven for climate, and hell for society.

He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.

Wilson stopped and stood silent. Inattention dies a quick and sure death when a speaker does that.

When the time comes that a man has had his dinner, then the true man comes to the surface

Blasphemy? No, it is not blashphemy. If God is as vast as that, he is above blasphemy; if he is as little as that, He is beneath it.

I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

The nation is divided, half patriots and half traitors, and no man can tell which from which.

Talking of patriotism, what humbug it is; it is a word which always commemorates a robbery.

It is sound judgment to put on a bold face and play your hand for a hundred times what it is worth; forty-nine times out of fifty nobody dares to call it, and you roll in the chips.

Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.

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. Sometimes we are too close to the scene, to see clearly. We "know" ourselves so well that we cannot see how we are perceived by others. Our opinion of ourselves is only "one" opinion and it may not be the truth.

If books are not good company, where shall I find it?

You aim for the palace and get drowned in the sewer.

Each season brings a world of enjoyment and interest in the watching of its unfolding, its gradual harmonious development, its culminating graces-and just as one begins to tire of it, it passes away and a radical change comes, with new witcheries and new glories in its train.

Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know.

Do your duty today and repent tomorrow.

But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most, our one fellow and brother who most needed a friend yet had not a single one, the one sinner among us all who had the highest and clearest right to every Christian's daily and nightly prayers, for the plain and unassailable reason that his was the first and greatest need, he being among sinners the supremest?

Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.

I found out that I was a Christian for revenue only and I could not bear the thought of that, it was so ignoble.

I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey. I believe that whenever a human being, of even the highest intelligence and culture, delivers an opinion upon a matter apart from his particular and especial line of interest, training and experience, it will always be an opinion of so foolish and so valueless a sort that it can be depended upon to suggest to our Heavenly Father that the human being is another disappointment and that he is no considerable improvement upon the monkey.

That is an editor. He is trying to think of a word. He props his feet on a chair, which is the editor's way; then he can think better. I do not care much for this one; his ears are not alike; still, editor suggests the sound of Edward, and he will do. I could make him better if I had a model, but I made this one from memory. But is no particular matter; they all look alike, anyway. They are conceited and troublesome, and don't pay enough.

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

Loyalty is a word which has worked vast harm; for it has been made to trick men into being "loyal" to a thousand iniquities, whereas the true loyalty should have been to themselves - in which case there would have ensured a rebellion, and the throwing off of that deceptive yoke.

Who are we to create a heaven and hell for ourselves, excluding animals and plants in the bargain, just because we have the power to rationalize?

when we badly want a thing, we go to hunting for good and righteous reasons for it; we give it that fine name to comfort our consciences, whereas we privately know we are only hunting for plausible ones.

There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather... In the spring I have counted one hundred and twenty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours.

But we are all insane, anyway. Note the mountain-climbers.

Great enterprises usually promise vastly more than they perform.

To forget pain is to be painless; to forget care is to be rid of it; to go abroad is to accomplish both.

Your road is everything that a road ought to be...and yet you will not stay in it half a mile, for the reason that little, seductive, mysterious roads are always branching out from it on either hand, and as these curve sharply also and hide what is beyond, you cannot resist the temptation to desert your own chosen path and explore them.

I wrote 'Tom Sawyer' and 'Huck Finn' for adults exclusively, and it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean.

great people are those who make others feel that they, too, can become great.

I would not rob you of your food or your clothes or your umbrella, but if I caught your German out I would take it. But I don't study any more,- I have given it up.

History doesn't repeat itself; it rhymes.

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.

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.

I have done more for San Francisco than any of its old residents. Since I left there it has increased in population fully 300,000. I could have done more - I could have gone earlier - it was suggested.

Humor is man's greatest blessing.

Good judgement is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement.