There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.
Mark Twain...there isn't often anything in Wagner opera that one would call by such a violent name as acting.
Mark TwainNow is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
Mark TwainGod made all the animals in a single day; he could have swept them all away in the flood and re-created them in one day when they were again needed. Therefore it was an odd idea to save specimens of them for eleven months in the ark, whilst aware that eight persons could not feed or water them by any human possibility. If they were to be preserved by miracle, the ark was not necessary - to let them swim would have answered the purpose and been more indubitably miraculous.
Mark TwainIf you shamefully misuse a cat once she will always maintain a dignified reserve toward you afterward. You will never get her full confidence again.
Mark TwainNo sane man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what a fearful thing it is.
Mark TwainOne holds a bottle of red wine by the neck, a woman by the waist, and a bottle of champagne by the derriere.
Mark TwainOur most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India.
Mark TwainAnger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
Mark TwainA banker is somebody who lends you an umbrella & takes it away as soon as it starts raining.
Mark TwainI speak French with timidity, and not flowingly--except when excited. When using that language I have often noticed that I have hardly ever been mistaken for a Frenchman, except, perhaps, by horses; never, I believe, by people.
Mark TwainThe average American's simplest and commonest form of breakfast consists of coffee and beefsteak.
Mark TwainI have stopped smoking now and then, for a few months at a time, but it was not on principle, it was only to show off; it was to pulverize those critics who said I was a slave to my habits and couldn't break my bonds.
Mark TwainNo throne exists that has a right to exist, and no symbol of it, flying from any flagstaff, is righteously entitled to wear any device but the skull and crossbones of that kindred industry which differs from royalty only businesswise-merely as retail differs from wholesale.
Mark TwainIt usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. Overnight success is a fallacy. It is preceded by a great deal of preparation. Ask any successful person how they came to this point in their lives, and they will have a story to tell.
Mark TwainThe statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
Mark TwainWe are always hearing of people who are around seeking after the Truth. I have never seen a (permanent) specimen. I think he has never lived. But I have seen several entirely sincere people who thought they were (permanent) Seekers after the Truth. They sought diligently, persistently, carefully, cautiously, profoundly, with perfect honesty and nicely adjusted judgment- until they believed that without doubt or question they had found the Truth. That was the end of the search. The man spent the rest of his hunting up shingles wherewith to protect his Truth from the weather.
Mark TwainMy advice to girls: first, don't smoke - to excess; second, don't drink - to excess; third, don't marry - to excess.
Mark TwainWe are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove.
Mark TwainSome civilized women would lose half their charm without dress and some would lose all of it.
Mark TwainThe idea that no gentleman ever swears is all wrong. He can swear and still be a gentleman if he does it in a nice and benevolent and affectionate way.
Mark TwainEat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
Mark TwainThe trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.
Mark TwainHe gossips habitually; he lacks the common wisdom to keep still that deadly enemy of man, his own tongue.
Mark TwainI am personally acquainted with hundreds of journalists, and the opinion of the majority of them would not be worth tuppence in private, but when they speak in print it is the newspaper that is talking (the pygmy scribe is not visible) and then their utterances shake the community like the thunders of prophecy.
Mark Twain