Mark Twain Quotes

The devil's aversion to holy water is a light matter compared with a despots dread of a newspaper that laughs.

A better idea than my own is to listen.

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

These are the true and only God, mighty and supreme.

I have been cautioned to talk but be careful not to say anything. I do not consider this a difficult task.

God could create the world in six days because he didn't have to make it compatible with the previous version. Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company

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

History doesn't repeat itself; it rhymes.

We must look for our own blame to find our own personality.

There are some natures which never grow large enough to speak out and say a bad act is a bad act, until they have inquired into the politics or the nationality of the man who did it.

It used to take me all vacation to grow a new hide in place of the one they flogged off me during school term.

A "classic" is a book that everybody praises but nobody has read

When your watch gets out of order you have choice of two things to do: throw it in the fire or take it to the watch-tinker. The former is the quickest.

Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyne to git well agin.

It is not what a man knows, but what he thinks of in time.

....honest men are few when it comes to themselves.

That optimist of yours is always ready to turn hell's backyard into a play-ground.

Education is what remains when what is learned has been taken away.

Optimist: day-dreamer in his small clothes.

There are two reasons why anybody buys anything. The real reason, and the reason they give you.

Tough times teach trust.

No man, deep down in the privacy of his heart, has any considerable respect for himself.

There is no use in your walking five miles to fish when you can depend on being just as unsuccessful near home.

In love, you pay as you leave.

You cannot have a theory without principles. Principles is another name for prejudices.

The ignorant are afraid to betray surprise or admiration...they think it ill manners.

One must keep one's character. Earn a character first if you can, and if you can't, then assume one.

Demagogue--a vessel containing beer and other liquids.

The old saw says, 'Let a sleeping dog lie.' Right. Still, when there is much at stake it is better to get a newspaper to do it.

The old saw says - 'Let a sleeping dog lie.' Experience knows better; experience says, If you want to convince do it yourself.

Hero: Person in a book who does things which he can't and girl marries him for it.

Your friends may love you in private but your enemies will hate you in public.

He could charm an audience an hour on a stretch without ever getting rid of an idea.

I should have been glad to acquire some sort of idea of Hindu theology, ... but the difficulties were too great.

War talk by men who have been in a war is always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon is likely to be dull.

Truth is neither alive nor dead; it just aggravates itself all the time.

Wine is a clog to the pen, not an inspiration.

My father was an amazing man. The older I got, the smarter he got.

It is no use to keep private information which you can't show off.

Experience of life (not of books) is the only capital usable in such a book as you have attempted; one can make no judicious use of this capital while it is new.

Every person is a book, each year a chapter.

Always do what's right. That will gratify some and surprise the rest.

Pessimist: The optimist who didn't arrive.

Your actions speak so much louder than words.

The ancients stole all our ideas from us.

No one can write perfect English and keep it up through a stretch of ten chapters. It has never been done.

My father was a Saint Bernard, my mother was a Collie, but I am a Presbyterian.

I'm a very old man. I've had lots of problems. Most of them never happened..!

A banker is somebody who lends you an umbrella & takes it away as soon as it starts raining.

There's always a hole in theories somewhere if you look close enough.