Mark Twain

American humorist, writer, and lecturer

Nationality: American

Type: Writer

Birth: 1835-1910

Page: 1

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

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Methuselah lived to be 969 years old . You boys and girls will see more in the next fifty years than Methuselah saw in his whole lifetime.

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Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

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When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old.

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Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.''

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A man cannot be made comfortable without his own approval.

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Sometimes too much drink is barely enough.

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.

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Keep away from small people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

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In Boston they ask, ''How much does he know?'' In New York, ''How much is he worth?'' In Philadelphia, ''Who were his parents?''

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There isn't a single human characteristic that can be safely labeled as ''American.''

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It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

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When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.

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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.

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Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with a cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.

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It is nobler to be good, and it is nobler to teach others to be good, and less trouble!

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A banker is a fellow who lends his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

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To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.

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The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.

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Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

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I think a compliment ought to always precede a complaint, where one is possible, because it softens resentment and insures for the complaint a courteous and gentle reception.

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

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I can live for two months on a good compliment.

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I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.

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When you cannot get a compliment in any other way pay yourself one.

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There is nothing you can say in answer to a compliment. I have been complimented myself a great many times, and they always embarrass me -I always feel that they have not said enough.

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If you can't get a compliment any other way, pay yourself one.

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

» More quotes about: Conformity

The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.

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Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world, and never will.

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A good memory and a tongue tied in the middle is a combination which gives immortality to conversation.

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It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

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Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.

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It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.

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There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.

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The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession, but carrying a banner.

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The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

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We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Adam, the first great benefactor of the human race: he brought death into the world.

» More quotes about: Death | Humankind

Why is it that we rejoice at birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

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Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.

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All say, How hard it is that we have to die - a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

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We never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead - and not then until we have been dead years and years. People ought to start dead and then they would be honest so much earlier.

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Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

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When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

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Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

» More quotes about: Deception | Illusion

I am a democrat only on principle, not by instinct, nobody is that. Doubtless some people say they are, but this world is grievously given to lying.

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I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anybody who can tell me what they want.

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It is a time when one's spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death.

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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.

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Do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.

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Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

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I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

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To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler and less trouble.

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Never learn to do anything. If you don't learn, you will always find someone else to do it for you.

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Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.

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Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.

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The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity.

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Man will do many things to get himself loved; he will do all things to get himself envied.

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We are all alike, on the inside.

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There is nothing so annoying as a good example!!

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The cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will not sit upon a hot stove lid again. But he won't sit upon a cold stove lid, either.

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We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that is well; but also she will never sit do

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

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A soiled baby, with a neglected nose, cannot be conscientiously regarded as a thing of beauty.

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Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

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We have not all had the good fortune to be ladies. We have not all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground.

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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.

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He does not care for flowers. Calls them rubbish, and cannot tell one from another, and thinks it is superior to feel like that.

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When one has tasted it he knows what the angels eat.

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I was young and foolish then; now I am old and foolisher.

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It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

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Forget and forgive. This is not difficult when properly understood. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy.

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Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

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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.

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The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.

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Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered, either by themselves or by others.

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We have the best government that money can buy.

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If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

» More quotes about: Gratitude

To stop smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know; I've done it a thousand times.

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

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

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Happiness ain't a thing in itself -it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant. And so, as soon as the novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it ain't happiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh.

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Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

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The 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.

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History is strewn thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill, but a lie, well told, is immortal.

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

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Honesty is the best policy when there is money in it.

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It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

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The human race was always interesting and we know by its past that it will always continue so, monotonously.