Mark Twain Quotes

Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

College is a place where a professor's lecture notes go straight to the students' lecture notes, without passing through the brains of either.

One may make their house a palace of sham, or they can make it a home, a refuge.

Explaining humor is a lot like dissecting a frog, you learn a lot in the process, but in the end you kill it.

The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

All of us contain Music & Truth, but most of us can't get it out.

The citizen who sees his society's democratic clothes being worn out and does not cry it out, is not a patriot, but a traitor.

We are all beggars, each in his own way.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.

My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders.

The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.

There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy bad principles and recreate good ones; it can lift men to angelship.

He had the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.

He gossips habitually; he lacks the common wisdom to keep still that deadly enemy of man, his own tongue.

You can tell German wine from vinegar by the label.

Happiness ain't a thing in itself - it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant.

One can enjoy a rainbow without necessarily forgetting the forces that made it.

No one is willing to acknowledge a fault in himself when a more agreeable motive can be found for the estrangement of his acquaintances.

If you want love and abundance in your life, give it away.

The principle of give and take is the principle of diplomacy - give one and take ten

Ethical man: A Christian holding four aces.

The man who is ostentatious of his modesty is twin to the statue that wears a fig-leaf.

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.

Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.

How empty is theory in the presence of fact!

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

Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know.

I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the things which were sacred to other people.

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

If there are no cigars in heaven, I shall not go.

A man with a hump-backed uncle mustn't make fun of another man's cross-eyed aunt

If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.

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

You should never trust a man who has only one way to spell a word.

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

Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.

Of the delights of this world man cares most for sexual intercourse.

It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.

What would men be without women? Scarce, sir...mighty scarce.

Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.

Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.

I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatsoever.

I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places.

It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.

Independence-is loyalty to one's best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty to the general idols and fetishes.

Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: the one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it.

He charged nothing for his preaching and it was worth it too.