Mark Twain Quotes

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

Sometimes I wish we could hear of a country that’s out of kings.

He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it, namely, that, in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.

Human nature appears to be just the same, all over the world

You cannot surprise an individual more than twice with the same marvel

If I were to construct a God I would furnish Him with some way and qualities and characteristics which the Present lacks.

Work like you don't need the money. Dance like no one is watching. And love like you've never been hurt.

I can last two months on a good compliment.

She said all a body would have to do there [Heaven] was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever.

Truth is stranger than fiction...

Tom Sawyer the Pirate looked around upon the envying juveniles about him and confessed in his heart that this was the proudest moment of his life.

There isn’t a parallel of latitude but thinks it would have been the equator if it had had its rights.

It gave an appalling idea of the value of an hour, and I thought I could never waste one again without remorse and terror.

Maybe not, maybe not. Cheer up, Becky, and let's go on trying.

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.

Darwin abolished special creations, contributed the Origin of Species and hitched all life together in one unbroken procession.

If man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.

It was a dreadful thing to see. Humans beings can be awful cruel to one another.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.

An honest man in politics shines more there than he would elsewhere.- A Tramp Abroad

He had had much experience of physicians, and said 'the only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd druther not'.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns a lesson he can learn in no other way.

At the beginning of that interval a type-machine was a curiosity. The person who owned one was a curiosity, too. But now it is the other way about: the person who doesn't own one is a curiosity.

Yes, I am of old family, and not illiterate. I am a fossil."   "A which?"   "Fossil. The first horses were fossils. They date back two million years.

The writing begins when you've finished. Only then do you know what you're trying to say.

The time to being writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.

If the writer doesn't sweat, the reader will.

I find that, as a rule, when a thing is a wonder to us it is not because of what we see in it, but because of what others have seen in it. We get almost all our wonders at second hand.

Perfect grammar--persistent, continuous, sustained--is the fourth dimension, so to speak: many have sought it, but none has found it.

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. Fanatics will never learn that, though it be written in letters of gold across the sky. It is the prohibition that makes anything precious

Use what you stand for and what you oppose as a foundation to write great content that resonates with readers and creates a ripple effect.

To all intents and purposes Roxy was as white as anybody, but the one sixteenth of her which was black outvoted the other fifteen parts and made her a Negro. She was a slave, and salable as such.

It don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for him anyway.

The weakest of all weak things is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire.

The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.

Jim said he believed it was spirits, but I says: no, spirits wouldn't say "dern the dern fog".

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.

Drag your thoughts awayfrom your troubles...by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it.

To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, "Our Country, right or wrong, " and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation?

There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress.

It's considered good sportsmanship not to pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.

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

Satan had been making admiring remarks about certain of the Creator's sparkling industries -- remarks which, being read between the lines, were sarcasms.

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.

Necessity is the mother of "taking chances."

Put all thine eggs in one basket and - watch that basket.