Mark Twain
journalist, novelist, autobiographer, teacher, humorist, children's writer, travel writer, aphorist, science fiction writer, writer, prose writer, opinion journalist
Read on Wikipedia1835 – 1910
All Quotes by Mark Twain
“Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.”
“Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.”
“Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man's, I mean.”
“Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.”
“Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.”
“When ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles, but in showers.”
“We are all alike, on the inside.”
“Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
“I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.”
“If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.”
“It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.”
“Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.”
“The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.”
“Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.”
“I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”
“Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.”
“Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.”
“Everything has its limit - iron ore cannot be educated into gold.”
“The lack of money is the root of all evil.”
“When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.”
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”
“When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.”
“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”
“Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.”
“The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man's.”
“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”
“Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.”
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
“We have the best government that money can buy.”
“Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.”
“Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.”
“When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old.”
“In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.”
“If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but deteriorate the cat.”
“It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.”
“It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.”
“The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.”
“It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.”
“It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.”
“Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.”
“Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.”
“Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.”
“Necessity is the mother of taking chances.”
“Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.”
“Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”
“I lost Susy thirteen years ago; I lost her mother--her incomparable mother!--five and a half years ago; Clara has gone away to live in Europe and now I have lost Jean. How poor I am, who was once so rich! . . . Jean lies yonder, I sit here; we are strangers under our own roof; we kissed hands good-by at this door last night--and it was forever, we never suspecting it. She lies there, and I sit here--writing, busying myself, to keep my heart from breaking. How dazzling the sunshine is flooding the hills around! It is like a mockery. Seventy-four years ago twenty-four days. Seventy-four years old yesterday. Who can estimate my age today?”
“It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.”
“The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.”
“There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.”
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”
“Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.”
“India has 2,000,000 gods and worships them all. In religion, all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire.”
“The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.”
“Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.”
“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”
“Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.”
“There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.”
“Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”
“To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.”
“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”
“Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.”
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
“Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.”
“There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one - keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.”
“All emotion is involuntary when genuine.”
“It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive.”
“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - 'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”
“I wish I could make him understand that a loving good heart is riches enough, and that without it intellect is poverty.”
“I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any.”
“Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.”
“What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.”
“Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.”
“The educated Southerner has no use for an 'r', except at the beginning of a word.”
“The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.”
“I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatsoever.”
“All generalizations are false, including this one.”
“There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.”
“I'll risk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county.”
“It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.”
“I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog.”
“When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.”
“He was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.”
“Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish.”
“I have seen Chinamen abused and maltreated in all the mean, cowardly ways possible to the invention of a degraded nature, but I never saw a policeman interfere in the matter and I never saw a Chinaman righted in a court of justice for wrongs thus done him.”
“Golf is a good walk spoiled.”
“Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.”
“I never let schooling interfere with my education.”
“Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.”
“It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.”
“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.”
“When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.”
“Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.”
“Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience — 4000 critics.”
“We have the best government that money can buy.”
“When red-haired people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.”
“A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.”
“He is now fast rising from affluence to poverty.”
“George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.”
“Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough.”
“The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.”
“Formerly, if you killed a man, it was possible that you were insane—but now, if you, having friends and money, kill a man, it is evidence that you are a lunatic.”
“He is now rising from affluence to poverty.”
“Is not this insanity plea becoming rather common? Is it not so common that the reader confidently expects to see it offered in every criminal case that comes before the courts? [...] Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against insanity.”
“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”
“One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.”
“Benjamin Franklin did a great many notable things for his country, and made her young name to be honored in many lands as the mother of such a son. It is not the idea of this memoir to ignore that or cover it up. No; the simple idea of it is to snub those pretentious maxims of his, which he worked up with a great show of originality out of truisms that had become wearisome platitudes as early as the dispersion from Babel.”
“Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.”
“This poor little one-horse town.”
“There isn't time, so brief is life, for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving, and but an instant, so to speak, for that.”
“Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.”
“It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive.”
“A baby is an inestimable blessing and bother.”
“Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”
“Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.”
“The funniest things are the forbidden.”
“Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.”
“We haven't all had the good fortune to be ladies; we haven't all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground.”
“Better a broken promise than none at all.”
“Among the three or four million cradles now rocking in the land are some which this nation would preserve for ages as sacred things, if we could know which ones they are.”
“Familiarity breeds contempt - and children.”
“Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
“Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.”
“Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.”
“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.”
“When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man's moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?”
“Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.”
“Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world — and never will.”
“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.”
“It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.”
“He [George Washington Cable] has taught me to abhor and detest the Sabbath day and hunt up new and troublesome ways to dishonor it.”
“She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.”
“Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.”
“As I slowly grow wise I briskly grow cautious.”
“Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to.”
“A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.”
“I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure.”
“To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.”
“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”
“Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.”
“A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.”
“Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it.”
“I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any.”
“My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.”
“I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.”
“Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.”
“Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.”
“I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.”
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”
“No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.”
“If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.”
“Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.”
“James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London, but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness; the report of my death was an exaggeration.”
“Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.”
“When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.”
“A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.”
“I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.”
“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.”
“[Citing a familiar "American joke":] In Boston they ask, How much does he know? In New York, How much is he worth? In Philadelphia, Who were his parents?”
“I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.”
“Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments flit away and a sunny spirit takes their place.”
“How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing, nobody had said it before.”
“Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”
“There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one - keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.”
“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.”
“A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.”
“I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I’m not feeling so well myself.”
“A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.”
“'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read.”
“He had only one vanity; he thought he could give advice better than any other person.”
“Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.”
“There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory.”
“Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
“By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.”
“Definition of a classic — something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”
“What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.”
“It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.”
“We believe that out of the public school grows the greatness of a nation.”
“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
“Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.”
“The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples — that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at.”
“Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.”
“Your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug,—push it a little—crowd it a little—weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand.”
“If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.”
“When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”
“Whose property is my body? Probably mine. I so regard it. If I experiment with it, who must be answerable? I, not the State. If I choose injudiciously, does the State die? Oh no.”
“Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.”
“Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.”
“...[H]eaven for climate, Hell for society.”
“I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.”
“Honesty is the best policy — when there is money in it.”
“Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
“Herodotus says, "Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all: the conscientious historian will correct these defects.”
“It put our energies to sleep and made visionaries of us - dreamers and indolent... It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin life rich - these are wholesome; but to begin it prospectively rich! The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it.”
“Now what I contend is that my body is my own, at least I have always so regarded it. If I do harm through my experimenting with it, it is I who suffer, not the state.”
“The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.”
“Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.”
“Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.”
“God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.”
“To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add the sheep was a tautology.”
“Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.”
“Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is, I dunno. If the Eiffel Tower were now representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; and anybody would perceive that the skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno.”
“Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.”
“To put it in rude, plain, unpalatable words — true patriotism, real patriotism: loyalty not to a Family and a Fiction, but a loyalty to the Nation itself!..."Remember this, take this to heart, live by it, die for it if necessary: that our patriotism is medieval, outworn, obsolete; that the modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation ALL the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it." [Czar Nicholas II]”
“Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.”
“He is a stranger to me, but he is a most remarkable man — and I am the other one. Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known, and I know the rest.”
“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
“The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.”
“The only reason why God created man is because he was disappointed with the monkey.”
“When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.”
“A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.”
“Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.”
“What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.”
“Customs do not concern themselves with right or wrong or reason. But they have to be obeyed; one reasons all around them until he is tired, but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden.”
“Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.”
“Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.”
“It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive.”
“We Americans... bear the ark of liberties of the world.”
“I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.”
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
“In 'Huckleberry Finn,' I have drawn Tom Blankenship exactly as he was. He was ignorant, unwashed, insufficiently fed; but he had as good a heart as ever any boy had.”
“Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.”
“Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.”
“When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.”
“Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.”
“Adam's temperament was the first command the Deity ever issued to a human being on this planet. And it was the only command Adam would never be able to disobey. It said, "Be weak, be water, be characterless, be cheaply persuadable." The later command, to let the fruit alone, was certain to be disobeyed. Not by Adam himself, but by his temperament — which he did not create and had no authority over.”
“It is easier to stay out than get out.”
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.”
“Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
“Optimist: day dreamer more elegantly spelled.”
“You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is.”
“As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake.”
“We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking. And out of it we get an aggregation which we consider a boon. Its name is public opinion. It is held in reverence. Some think it the voice of God.”
“Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.”
“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”
“Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.”
“Always acknowledge a fault frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you opportunity to commit more.”
“The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.”
“Humor must not professedly teach, and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever. By forever, I mean thirty years.”
“When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”
“The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.”
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
“A critic never made or killed a book or a play. The people themselves are the final judges. It is their opinion that counts. After all, the final test is truth. But the trouble is that most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession and therefore are most economical in its use.”
“Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.”
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.”
“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
“Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.”
“It is not worth while to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible.”
“It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.”
“Jesus died to save men — a small thing for an immortal to do, & didn't save many, anyway; but if he had been damned for the race that would have been act of a size proper to a god, & would have saved the whole race. However, why should anybody want to save the human race, or damn it either? Does God want its society? Does Satan?”
“Prosperity is the best protector of principle.”
“Don't let schooling interfere with your education.”
“A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.”
“The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.”
“Adam, at Eve's grave: Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden.”
“I make it a rule never to smoke while I'm sleeping.”
“Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.”
“The Public is merely a multiplied 'me.'”
“An injurious lie is an uncommendable thing; and so, also, and in the same degree, is an injurious truth—a fact that is recognized by the law of libel.”
“All generalizations are false, including this one.”
“Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”
“The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.”
“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.”
“Compliments make me vain: & when I am vain, I am insolent & overbearing. It is a pity, too, because I love compliments. I love them even when they are not so. My child, I can live on a good compliment two weeks with nothing else to eat.”
“Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion — several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight.”
“My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.”
“I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.”
“They spell it "Vinci" and pronounce it "Vinchy". Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.”
“I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo — that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture — great in every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast — for luncheon — for dinner — for tea — for supper — for between meals. I like a change, occasionally.”
“Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.”
“You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
“Enough, enough, enough! Say no more! Lump the whole thing! say that the Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo!”
“It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.”
“Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.”
“Guides cannot master the subtleties of the American joke.”
“I wish Europe would let Russia annihilate Turkey a little--not much, but enough to make it difficult to find the place again without a divining-rod or a diving-bell.”
“Virtue never has been as respectable as money.”
“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
“The Erie railroad kills 23 to 46; the other 845 railroads kill an average of one-third of a man each; and the rest of that million, amounting in the aggregate to that appalling figure of 987,631 corpses, die naturally in their beds! You will excuse me from taking any more chances on those beds. The railroads are good enough for me.”
“No California gentleman or lady ever abuses or oppresses a Chinaman, under any circumstances, an explanation that seems to be much needed in the east. Only the scum of the population do it; they and their children. They, and, naturally and consistently, the policemen and politicians, likewise, for these are the dust-licking pimps and slaves of the scum, there as well as elsewhere in America.”
“Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.”
“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 obtain.”
“Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.”
“Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and...Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”
“The minister gave out his text and droned along monotonously through an argument that was so prosy that many a head by and by began to nod — and yet it was an argument that dealt in limitless fire and brimstone and thinned the predestined elect down to a company so small as to be hardly worth the saving.”
“There was no getting around the stubborn fact that taking sweetmeats was only "hooking," while taking bacon and hams and such valuables was plain simple stealing — and there was a command against that in the Bible. So they inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in the business, their piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing.”
“To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.”
“There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration — and regret. The weather is always doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always getting up new designs and trying them on people to see how they will go. But it gets through more business in spring than in any other season. In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of twenty-four hours.”
“Probable nor'east to sou'west winds, varying to the soutard and westard and eastard and points between; high and low barometer, sweeping round from place to place; probable areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes with thunder and lightning.”
“One of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it.”
“That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain't no disgrace.”
“A gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years.”
“We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that the savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter.”
“You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does -- but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use.”
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR.”
“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”
“You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.”
“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”
“Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches.”
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
“We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't often that we laughed, only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all, that night, nor the next, nor the next.”
“If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.”
“Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.”
“Pilgrim's Progress, about a man that left his family, it didn't say why. I read considerable in it now and then. The statements was interesting, but tough.”
“There warn't anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't go to church only when they've got to; but a hog is different.”
“We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.”
“To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin.”
“Everybody yelled at him, and laughed at him, and sassed him, and he sassed back, and said he'd attend to them and lay them out in their regular turns, but he couldn't wait now, because he'd come to town to kill old Colonel Sherburn, and his motto was, "Meat first, and spoon vittles to top off on."”
“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
“H'aint we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?”
“A God who could make good children as easily a bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave is angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell--mouths mercy, and invented hell--mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!”
“I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself, "All right, then, I'll GO to hell."”
“So there ain't nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't a tackled it and aint't agoing to no more. But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can't stand it. I been there before.”
“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”
“Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.”
“It is a mystery that is hidden from me by reason that the emergency requiring the fathoming of it hath not in my life-days occurred, and so, not having no need to know this thing, I abide barren of the knowledge.”
“Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”
“You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
“The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it.”
“Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.”
“To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is correct.”
“These wisdoms are for the luring of youth toward high moral altitudes. The author did not gather them from practice, but from observation. To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.”
“When in doubt, tell the truth.”
“Prosperity is the best protector of principle.”
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
“It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right.”
“It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.”
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”
“Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.”
“If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.”
“Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.”
“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.”
“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
“There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous and shallow: Yet it was the schoolboy who said "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."”
“Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.”
“Truth is stranger than fiction — to some people, but I am measurably familiar with it.”
“There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.”
“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”
“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.”
“It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.”
“When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.”
“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
“Man will do many things to get himself loved; he will do all things to get himself envied.”
“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”
“"Classic." A book which people praise and don't read.”
“Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.”
“Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.”
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
“Nearly all black and brown skins are beautiful, but a beautiful white skin is rare.”
“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 rather not.”
“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.”
“Prosperity is the best protector of principle.”
“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.”
“It is wonderful, the power of a faith like that, that can make multitudes upon multitudes of the old and weak and the young and frail enter without hesitation or complaint upon such incredible journeys and endure the resultant miseries without repining. It is done in love, or it is done in fear; I do not know which it is. No matter what the impulse is, the act born of it is beyond imagination marvelous to our kind of people, the cold whites.”
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”
“By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.”
“Buy land, they're not making it anymore.”
“Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.”
“You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
“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 round. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked.”
“The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.”
“Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist but you have ceased to live.”
“When in doubt tell the truth.”
“Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.”
“Golf is a good walk spoiled.”
“Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”
“Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.”
“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.”
“Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
“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 rather not.”
“I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can't be any worse.”
“Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.”
“The Jew is not a disturber of the peace of any country. Even his enemies will concede that. He is not a loafer, he is not a sot, he is not noisy, he is not a brawler nor a rioter, he is not quarrelsome. In the statistics of crime his presence is conspicuously rare — in all countries. With murder and other crimes of violence he has but little to do: he is a stranger to the hangman. In the police court's daily long roll of "assaults" and "drunk and disorderlies" his name seldom appears ...”
“Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”
“A Jewish beggar is not impossible, perhaps; such a thing may exist, but there are few men that can say they have seen that spectacle.”
“Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.”
“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times.”
“These facts are all on the credit side of the proposition that the Jew is a good and orderly citizen. Summed up, they certify that he is quiet, peaceable, industrious, unaddicted to high crimes and brutal dispositions; that his family life is commendable; that he is not a burden upon public charities; that he is not a beggar; that in benevolence he is above the reach of competition. These are the very quintessentials of good citizenship.”
“Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.”
“In the cotton States, after the war...the Jew came down in force, set up shop on the plantation, supplied all the negro's wants on credit, and at the end of the season was proprietor of the negro's share of the present crop and of part of his share of the next one. Before long, the whites detested the Jew, and it is doubtful if the negro loved him.”
“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
“My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.”
“I am persuaded that in Russia, Austria, and Germany nine-tenths of the hostility to the Jew comes from the average Christian's inability to compete successfully with the average Jew in business--in either straight business or the questionable sort.”
“Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.”
“The lack of money is the root of all evil.”
“Ages of restriction to the one tool which the law was not able to take from him--his brain--have made that tool singularly competent...”
“All generalizations are false, including this one.”
“In estimating worldly values the Jew is not shallow, but deep. With precocious wisdom he found out in the morning of time that some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship God, and that over these ideals they dispute and cannot unite--but that they all worship money; so he made it the end and aim of his life to get it. The cost to him has been heavy; his success has made the whole human race his enemy...”
“To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.”
“Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.”
“Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”
“The best of us would rather be popular than right.”
“Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.”
“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”
“Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.”
“There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.”
“As an active privilege, [free speech] ranks with the privilege of committing murder: we may exercise it if we are willing to take the consequences. Murder is forbidden both in form and in fact; free speech is granted in form but forbidden in fact. By the common estimate both are crimes, and are held in deep odium by all civilized peoples. Murder is sometimes punished, free speech always.”
“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
“It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.”
“An unpopular opinion concerning politics or religion lies concealed in the breast of every man; in many cases not only one sample, but several. The more intelligent the man, the larger the freightage of this kind of opinions he carries, and keeps to himself.”
“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
““[W]e consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound.”
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
“He says every man is a moon and has a side which he turns toward nobody: you have to slip around behind if you want to see it.”
“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”
“It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.”
“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”
“It may be called the Master Passion—the hunger for Self-Approval.”
“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
“Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”
“Necessity is the mother of taking chances.”
“The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.”
“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
“But the truth is, that when a Library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me.”
“Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.”
“Citizenship? We have none! In place of it we teach patriotism which Samuel Johnson said a hundred and forty or a hundred and fifty years ago was the last refuge of the scoundrel -- and I believe that he was right. I remember when I was a boy and I heard repeated time and time again the phrase, 'My country, right or wrong, my country!' How absolutely absurd is such an idea. How absolutely absurd to teach this idea to the youth of the country.”
“Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.”
“Herodotus says, "Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects."”
“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.”
“Only laughter can blow [a colossal humbug] to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”
“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”
“There is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a Dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And You are but a Thought — a vagrant Thought, a useless Thought, a homeless Thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities.”
“If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.”
“I can live for two months on a good compliment.”
“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
“The bicycle had what is called the 'wabbles', and had them very badly. In order to keep my position, a good many things were required of me, and in every instance the thing required was against nature. Against nature, but not against the laws of nature.”
“Man was made at the end of the week's work, when God was tired.”
“There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress.”
“Try as you may, you don't get down as you would from a horse, you get down as you would from a house afire. You make a spectacle of yourself every time.”
“It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”
“The self-taught man seldom knows anything accurately, and he does not know a tenth as much as he could have known if he had worked under teachers;”
“Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”
“Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.”
“There are those who imagine that the unlucky accidents of life—life's "experiences"—are in some way useful to us. I wish I could find out how. I never know one of them to happen twice. They always change off and swap around and catch you on your inexperienced side.”
“We have the best government that money can buy.”
“Before taking final leave of me, my instructor inquired concerning my physical strength, and I was able to inform him that I hadn't any.”
“Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.”
“I started out alone to seek adventures. You don't really have to seek them—that is nothing but a phrase—they come to you.”
“Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”
“I have seen it stated that no expert is quick enough to run over a dog; that a dog is always able to skip out of his way. I think that that may be true; but I think that the reason he couldn't run over the dog was because he was trying to. I did not try to run over any dog. But I ran over every dog that came along.”
“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”
“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.”
“Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.”
“I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places.”
“We began to stir against slavery. Hearts grew soft, here, there, and yonder. There was no place in the land where the seeker could not find some small budding sign of pity for the slave. No place in all the land but one—the pulpit. It yielded at last; it always does. It fought a strong and stubborn fight, and then did what it always does, joined the procession—at the tail end. Slavery fell. The slavery text remained; the practice changed, that was all.”
“Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.”
“I never let schooling interfere with my education.”
“Biographies are but clothes and buttons of the man — the biography of the man himself cannot be written.”
“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
“A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.”
“I thoroughly disapprove of duels. I consider them unwise and I know they are dangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me now I would go to that man and take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet retired spot and kill him.”
“Let us endeavor so to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”
“Of all the creatures that were made he [man] is the most detestable. Of the entire brood he is the only one — the solitary one — that possesses malice. That is the basest of all instincts, passions, vices — the most hateful...He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain...Also — in all the list he is the only creature that has a nasty mind.”
“It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.”
“The trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades.”
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”
“The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.”
“A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.”
“There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.”
“A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.”
“In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue, but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”
“Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.”
“France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.”
“I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'”
“God's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.”
“Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we.'”
“France has usually been governed by prostitutes.”
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”
“The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.”
“Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.”
“If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.”
“Familiarity breeds contempt — and children.”
“My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.”
“Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”
“Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.”
“Don't let schooling interfere with your education.”
“Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.”
“The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives.”
“Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.”
“Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.”
“Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all — the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved.”
“There are lies, damned lies and statistics.”
“Surely the test of a novel's characters is that you feel a strong interest in them and their affairs—the good to be successful, the bad to suffer failure. Well, in John Ward, you feel no divided interest, no discriminating interest—you want them all to land in hell together, and right away.”
“Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.”
“This nation is like all the others that have been spewed upon the earth--ready to shout for any cause that will tickle its vanity or fill its pocket. What a hell of a heaven it will be when they get all these hypocrites assembled there!”
“Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”
“Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.”
“But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?”
“None but the dead have free speech.”
“The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.”
“What is the difference between a taxidermist & a tax-collector? The taxidermist only takes your skin.”
“The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.”
“Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.”
“When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.”
“Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship God, & over these ideals they dispute & cannot unite — but they all worship money.”
“I can live for two months on a good compliment.”
“You can't depend on your judgment when your imagination is out of focus.”
“A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”
“Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.”
“Prosperity is the best protector of principle.”
“The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it.”
“Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.”
“My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.”
“Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.”
“There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.”
“Not a single right is indestructible: a new might can at any time abolish it, hence, man possesses not a single permanent right. God is Might (and He is shifty, malicious, and uncertain).”
“Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.”
“"In God We Trust." It is the choicest compliment that has ever been paid us, and the most gratifying to our feelings. It is simple, direct, gracefully phrased: it always sounds well —\xa0In God We Trust. I don't believe it would sound any better if it were true. And in a measure it is true — half the nation trusts in Him. That half has decided it.”
“Man was made at the end of the week's work, when God was tired.”
“In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot”
“I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.”
“The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal.”
“I never smoke to excess - that is, I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time.”
“How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and [how] hard it is to undo that work again!”
“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”
“Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.”
“All right, then, I'll go to hell.”
“Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so.”
“It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.”
“Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”
“Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.”