Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
Mark TwainWhat is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man's breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery!
Mark TwainWe recognize that there are no trivial occurrences in life if we get the right focus on them.
Mark TwainIt is impossible that a genius - at least a literary genius - can ever be discovered by his intimates; they are so close to him that he is out of focus to them and they can't get at his proportions; they can't perceive that there is any considerable difference between his bulk and their own.
Mark TwainUnconsciously we all have a standard by which we measure other men, and if we examine closely we find that this standard is a very simple one, and is this: we admire them, we envy them, for great qualities we ourselves lack. Hero worship consists in just that. Our heroes are men who do things which we recognize, with regret, and sometimes with a secret shame, that we cannot do. We find not much in ourselves to admire, we are always privately wanting to be like somebody else. If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.
Mark TwainWhat God lacks is convictions- stability of character. He ought to be a Presbyterian or a Catholic or something- not try to be everything.
Mark TwainI would not read the proof of one of my books for any fair & reasonable sum whatever, if I could get out of it. The proof-reading on the P & Pauper cost me the last rags of my religion.
Mark TwainIt was a place of sin, loose women, whiskey and gambling. It was no place for a good Presbyterian, and I did not long remain one.
Mark TwainA marriage...makes of two fractional lives a whole; it gives to two purposeless lives a work, and doubles the strength of each to perform it; it gives to two questioning natures a reason for living, and something to live for; it will give a new gladness to the sunshine, a new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth, and a new mystery to life.
Mark TwainWe had an abundance of mangoes, papaias and bananas here, but the pride of the islands, the most delicious fruit known to men, cherimoya, was not in season. It has a soft pulp, like a pawpaw, and is eaten with a spoon.
Mark TwainIf you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.
Mark TwainWhere a blood relation sobs, an intimate friend should choke up, a distant acquaintance should sigh, a stranger should merely fumble sympathetically with his handkerchief.
Mark Twain...many foolish persons, wanderers from other parts, have the vain fashion of graving their names and the obscure places whence they come, upon its stones, which is silly and marketh the doer for a fool.
Mark TwainTo be vested with enormous authority is a fine thing; but to have the on-looking world consent to it is finer.
Mark TwainThe difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal.
Mark TwainMen are more compassionate/(nobler)/magnanimous/generous than God; for men forgive their dead, but God does not.
Mark TwainIf you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.
Mark TwainYou have noticed that the human being is a curiosity. In times past he has had (and worn out and flung away) hundreds and hundreds of religions; today he has hundreds and hundreds of religions, and launches not fewer than three new ones every year. I could enlarge on that number and still be within the facts.
Mark TwainIt has taken a weary long time to persuade American Presbyterians to give up infant damnation and try to bear it the best they can.
Mark TwainDeep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie - I found that out.
Mark TwainA good legible label is usually worth, for information, a ton of significant attitude and expression in a historical picture.
Mark TwainAs a rule, we go about with masks, we go about looking honest, and we are able to conceal ourselves all through the day.
Mark TwainSome people get an education without going to college. The rest get it after they get out.
Mark TwainConcentration of power in a political machine is bad; and an Established Church is only a political machine; it was invented for that; it is nursed, cradled, preserved for that; it is an enemy to human liberty, and does no good which it could not better do in a split-up and scattered condition.
Mark TwainTo be great, truly great, you have to be the kind of person who makes the others around you great.
Mark TwainPeace by persuasion has a pleasant sound, but I think we should not be able to work it. We should have to tame the human race first, and history seems to show that that cannot be done.
Mark Twain