Mark Twain Quotes

I have damaged my intellect trying to imagine why a man should want to invent a repeating clock, and how another man could be found to lust after it and buy it. The man who can guess these riddles is far on the way to guess why the human race was invented - which is another riddle which tires me.

A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.

Go to bed early, get up early-this is wise.

To me [Edgar Allen Poe's] prose is unreadable—like Jane Austin's [sic]. No there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.

Such is professional jealousy; a scientist will never show any kindness for a theory which he did not start himself.

It is strange the way the ignorant and inexperienced so often and so undeservedly succeed when the informed and the experienced fail.

I never write Metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get the same money for cop.

Cherimoya, the most delicious fruit known to men.

Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.

I'm merely running some errands. This is now off the record.

To avoid being drawn into error, keep a firm grip on the truth.

A pilot must have a memory developed to absolute perfection. But there are two higher qualities which he also must have. He must have good and quick judgment and decision, and a cool, calm courage that no peril can shake.

In Marseilles they make half the toilet soap we consume in America, but the Marseillaise only have a vague theoretical idea of its use, which they have obtained from books of travel.

I never could do anything with figures, never had any talent for mathematics, never accomplished anything in my efforts at that rugged study, and to-day the only mathematics I know is multiplication, and the minute I get away up in that, as soon as I reach nine times seven- [He lapsed into deep thought, trying to figure nine times seven. Mr. McKelway whispered the answer to him.] I've got it now. It's eighty-four. Well, I can get that far all right with a little hesitation. After that I am uncertain, and I can't manage a statistic.

We grant God the possession of all the qualities of mind except the one that keeps the others healthy; that watches over their dignity; that focuses their vision true--humor.

Our consciences take no notice of pain inflicted on others until it reaches a point where it gives pain to us.

The truth hurts, but silence kills.

I hate editors, for they make me abandon a lot of perfectly good English words.

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. To live a fulfilled life, we need to keep creating the "what is next", of our lives. Without dreams and goals there is no living, only merely existing, and that is not why we are here.

Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on.

Whatever you say, say it with conviction

You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does -- but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use.

There is nothing in either savage or civilized history that is more utterly complete, more remorselessly sweeping than the Father of Mercy´s campaign among the Midianites. The official report deals only in masses, all the virgins, all the men, all the babies. all ´creatures that breathe,´ all houses. all cities. It gives you just one vast picture ...as far as the eye can reach, of charred ruins and storm-swept desolation... Would you expect this same conscienceless God, this moral bankrupt, to become a teacher of morals, of gentleness, of meekness, of righteousness, of purity?

It's not as bad as it sounds.

When the Lord finished the world, he pronounced it good. That is what I said about my first work, too. But Time, I tell you, Time takes the confidence out of these incautious opinions. It is more than likely that He thinks about the world, now, pretty much as I think about the Innocents Abroad. The fact is, there is a trifle too much water in both.

Let us consider that we are all insane. It will explain us to each other. It will unriddle many riddles

He had only one vanity; he thought he could give advice better than any other person.

I have not professionally dealt in truth. Many when they come to die have spent all the truth that was in them, and enter the next world as paupers. I have saved up enough to make an astonishment there.

God created war so that Americans would learn geography.

The Creator made Italy from designs by Michelangelo.

There is nothing more awe-inspiring than a miracle except the credulity that can take it at par.

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.

A photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever.

If everyone was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.

In writing, I shall always confine myself strictly to the truth, except when it is attended with inconvenience.

A dollar picked up in the road is more satisfaction to you than the ninety-and -nine which you had to work for, and money won at faro or in stock snuggles into your heart in the same way.

People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either being made.

There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable, and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress.

Civilization largely consists in hiding human nature. When the barbarian learns to hide it we account him enlightened.

Do not undervalue the headache. While it is at its sharpest it seems a bad investment; but when relief begins, the unexpired remainder is worth $4 a minute.

The idea that a baby doesn't amount to anything! Why, one baby is just a house and a front yard full by itself. One baby can, furnish more business than you and your whole Interior Department can attend to. He is enterprising, irrepressible, brimful of lawless activities.

Education is what you must acquire without any interference from your schooling.

The old Irish when immersing a babe at baptism left out the right arm so that it would remain pagan for good fighting

the size of a misfortune is not determinable by an outsider’s measurement of it but only by the measurements applied to it by the person specially affected by it.

I think I can say, and say with pride, that we have some legislatures that bring higher prices than any in the world.

How empty is theory in the presence of fact!

The wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for others' advantage, and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously; to lie gracefully and graciously, not awkwardly and clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly, squarely, with head erect, not haltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our high calling.