Mark Twain Quotes

I am not an American. I am the American.

Marriage -- yes, it is the supreme felicity of life. I concede it. And it is also the supreme tragedy of life. The deeper the love the surer the tragedy. And the more disconsolating when it comes.

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world and it's efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read-

The bane of Americans is overwork-and the ruin of any work is a divided interest. Concentrate-concentrate. One thing at a time.

In the laboratory there are no fustian ranks, no brummagem aristocracies; the domain of Science is a republic, and all its citizens are brothers and equals, its princes of Monaco and its stonemasons of Cromarty meeting, barren of man-made gauds and meretricious decorations, upon the one majestic level!

But we love the Old Travelers. We love to hear them prate and drivel and lie.

Man is without doubt the most interesting fool there is. He concedes that God made the angels immune from pain and death, and that he could have been similarly kind to man, but denies that he was under any moral obligation to do so.

There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy bad principles and recreate good ones; it can lift men to angelship.

The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn't indicate or promise, and which the other kind of eye couldn't detect.

Prosperity is the best protector of principle.

There is not a single celebrated Southern name in any of the departments of human industry except those of war, assassination, lynching, murder, the duel, repudiation, & massacre.

College is a place where a professor's lecture notes go straight to the students' lecture notes, without passing through the brains of either.

Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.

A man has no business to be depressed by a disappointment, anyway; he ought to make up his mind to get even.

Figures don't lie, but liars figure.

Those who say truth is stranger than fiction have wasted their time on poorly written fiction.

There ought to be a room in every house to swear in. It's dangerous to have to repress an emotion like that.

None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth.

...Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is a sort of low grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm. Yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the 'noblest work of God.'

My mother had a slender, small body, but a large heart-a heart so large that everybody's joys found welcome in it, and hospitable accommodation.

A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razorstrap. A thing book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.

Never run after you own hat - others will be delighted to do it; why spoil their fun?

We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made, or only just happened - Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so many. Jim said the moon could a laid them; well that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it, because I've seen a frog lay most as many, so of course It could be done.

The miracle or the power that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application and perseverance under the promptings of a brave, determined spirit.

What would men be without women? Scarce, sir...mighty scarce.

All saints can do miracles, but few of them can keep a hotel.

Praise is well, compliment is well, but affection-that is the last and most precious reward that any man can win, whether by character or achievement.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

If men bore children, there would only be one born in each family.

It is not worth while to strain one's self to tell the truth to people who habitually discount everything you tell them, whether it is true or isn't.

Fleas can be taught nearly anything a congressman can.

Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of growths

The principle of give and take is the principle of diplomacy - give one and take ten

The radical of one century is the conservative of the next.

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

A baby is an angel whose wings decrease as his legs increase.

It shames the average man to be valued below his own estimate of his worth.

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that but the really great make you feel that you too can become great. When you are seeking to bring big plans to fruition it is important with whom you regularly associate. Hang out with friends who are like-minded and who are also designing purpose-filled lives. Similarly be that kind of a friend for your friends.

It's my opinion that every one I know has morals, though I wouldn't like to ask. I know I have. But I'd rather teach them than practice them any day. "Give them to others"-that's my motto.

That's the difference between governments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do.

All say, ‘how hard it is that we have to die’ -- a strange complaint to come from the mouths of those who have had to live.

April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.

The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.

A lie can make it half way around the world before the truth has time to put its boots on.

The less a man knows the bigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands.

What is human life? The first third a good time; the rest remembering about it.

It takes a heap of sense to write good nonsense

How stunning are the changes which age makes in a man while he sleeps!