Mark Twain Quotes

Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.

When a man's dog turns against hime, it is time for his wife to pack her trunk and go home to mamma.

I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it.

an Autobiography is the truest of all books; for while it inevitably consists mainly of extinctions of the truth, shirkings of the truth, partial revealments of the truth, with hardly an instance of plain straight truth, the remorseless truth is there, between the lines, where the author-cat is raking dust upon it which hides from the disinterested spectator neither it nor its smell... the result being that the reader knows the author in spite of his wily diligences.

The community is eminently Portuguese - that is to say, it is slow, poor, shiftless, sleepy, and lazy.

Happiness ain't a thing in itself -it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant. And so, as soon as the novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it ain't happiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh.

My advice to girls: first, don't smoke - to excess; second, don't drink - to excess; third, don't marry - to excess.

Memories which someday will become all beautiful when the last annoyance that encumbers them shall have faded out of our minds.

Diligence is a good thing, but taking things easy is much more restful.

A group of men in evening clothes looks like a flock of crows, and is just about as inspiring.

So you see, the quality of humor is not a personal or a national monopoly. It's as free as salvation, and, I am afraid, far more widely distributed. But it has its value, I think. The hard and sordid things of life are too hard and too sordid and too cruel for us to know and touch them year after year without some mitigating influence, some kindly veil to draw over them, from time to time, to blur the craggy outlines, and make the thorns less sharp and the cruelties less malignant.

Geniuses are people who dash off weird, wild, incomprehensible poems with astonishing facility, & then go & get booming drunk & sleep in the gutter. Genius elevates a man to ineffable speres [sic] far above the vulgar world, & fills his soul with a regal contempt for the gross & sordid things of earth. It is probably on account of this that people who have genius do not pay their board, as a general thing.

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Who is this Renaissance? Where did he come from? Who gave him permission to cram the Republic with his execrable daubs?

...the person that had took a bull by the tail once had learnt sixty or seventy times as much as a person that hadn't, and said a person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was getting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn't ever going to grow dim or doubtful. Chances are, he isn't likely to carry the cat that way again, either. But if he wants to, I say let him!

Foreigners cannot enjoy our food, I suppose, any more than we can enjoy theirs. It is not strange; for tastes are made, not born. I might glorify my bill of fare until I was tired; but after all, the Scotchman would shake his head and say, 'Where's your haggis?' and the Fijan would sigh and say, 'Where's your missionary?'

[Do you worry unnecessarily about the future? Remember most fears are just False Evidence Appearing Real. Don't let unfounded fears rob you of the joys of life or you too will say...] There has been much tragedy in my life; [and] at least half of it actually happened.

The highest pleasure to be got out of freedom, and having nothing to do, is labor.

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

Intellectual ''work'' is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward.

Explore. Dream. Discover.

Laughter is the greatest weapon we have and we, as humans, use it the least.

I was born lazy. I am no lazier now than I was forty years ago, but that is because I reached the limit forty years ago. You can't go beyond possibility.

Do your duty today and repent tomorrow.

And what is a man without energy? Nothing - nothing at all.

We never knew an ignorant person yet but was prejudiced.

The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

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.

How empty is theory in the presence of fact!

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

It is human to exaggerate the merits of the dead.

It is noble to teach oneself; it is still nobler to teach others.

Once you've put one of his [Henry James] books down, you simply can't pick it up again.

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.

Always tell the truth; then you don't have to remember anything

It isn't safe to sit in judgment upon another person's illusion when you are not on the inside. While you are thinking it is a dream, he may be knowing it is a planet.

Nothing so focuses the mind as the prospect of being hanged.

I am only human, although I regret it.

I love to revel in philosophical matters-especially astronomy. I study astronomy more than any other foolishness there is. I am a perfect slave to it. I am at it all the time. I have got more smoked glass than clothes. I am as familiar with the stars as the comets are. I know all the facts and figures and have all the knowledge there is concerning them. I yelp astronomy like a sun-dog, and paw the constellations like Ursa Major.

Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly ofthe storm of thought that is forever flowing through one's head.

Do good when you can, and charge when you think they will stand it.

A half-educated physician is not valuable. He thinks he can cure everything.

I do not like work even when someone else is doing it.

All good things arrive unto them that wait - and don't die in the meantime.

A woman springs a sudden reproach upon you which provokes a hot retort, and then she will presently ask you to apologize.

Everybody's private motto: It's better to be popular than right.

The trouble is not in dying for a friend, but in finding a friend worth dying for.

Never waste a lie; you never know when you may need it.

It is a good idea to obey all the rules when you're young just so you'll have the strength to break them when you're old.

... No photograph ever was good, yet, of anybody - hunger and thirst and utter wretchedness overtake the outlaw who invented it! It transforms into desperadoes the weakest of men; depicts sinless innocence upon the pictured faces of ruffians; gives the wise man the stupid leer of a fool, and the fool an expression of more than earthly wisdom.

Nature makes the locust with an appetite for crops; man would have made him with an appetite for sand

We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove.

A man's first duty is to his own conscience and honor; the party and country come second to that, and never first.

I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me.

I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die.

A cat is more intelligent than people believe, and can be taught any crime.

If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.

I smoke in moderation. Only one cigar at a time.

No 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.

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.