Mark Twain Quotes

“The highest perfection of politeness is only a beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of ungraceful and gilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying.”

“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do day after tomorrow just as well.”

“I've never let my school interfere with my education.”

“A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.”

“So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked.”

“Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.”

“There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one - keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.”

“What work I have done I have done because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn't have done it. . . . The work that is really a man's own work is play and not work at all. . . . When we talk about the great workers of the world we really mean the great players of the world.”

“When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.”

“The southerner talks music.”

“I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.”

“Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.”

“Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.”

“Don't just sit there and worry. Be proactive. Do something - anything - about what's worrying you so you can gain information, focus and control over the situation. I've suffered a great many catastrophes in my life. Most of them never happened.”

“The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one's clothes.”

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

“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs one step at a time.”

“It is better to be alone than unwelcome. - Eve”

“I was born modest, but it didn't last.”

“We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles.”

“The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.”

“Some people give their problems swimming lessons instead of drowning them.”

“There are two types of speakers: those thatare nervous and those that are liars.”

“On with the dance, let the joy be unconfined.”

“Duties are not performed for duty's sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty - the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself.”