Top 2442 Quotes & Sayings by Mark Twain - Page 38

Can it be possible that the painters make John the Baptist a Spaniard in Madrid and an Irishman in Dublin?

There are too many stars in some places and not enough in others.

Truth is such a precious article - let us all economize in its use.

This morning arrives a letter from my ancient silver-mining comrade, Calvin H. Higbie, a man whom I have not seen nor had communication with for forty-four years. . . . [Footnote: Roughing It is dedicated to Higbie.] . . . I shall allow myself the privilege of copying his punctuation and his spelling, for to me they are a part of the man. He is as honest as the day is long. He is utterly simple-minded and straightforward, and his spelling and his punctuation are as simple and honest as he is himself. He makes no apology for them, and no apology is needed.

Why should anybody want to save the human race, or damn it either? Does God want its society? Does Satan?

You may have noticed that the less I know about a subject the more confidence I have, and the more new light I throw on it.

A man's first duty is to his own conscience and honor; the party and country come second to that, and never first.

By common consent of all the nations and all the ages the most valuable thing in this world is the homage of men, whether deserved or undeserved.

Nothing seems to please a fly so much as to be taken for a currant; and if it can be baked in a cake and palmed off on the unwary, it dies happy.

The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing, it is the thing to watch over and care for and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous. . . .

The New York papers have long known that no large question is ever really settled until I have been consulted.

One of my theories is that the hearts of men are about alike, no matter what their skin color.

I'm merely running some errands. This is now off the record.

Ours is the "land of the free"-nobody denies that-nobody challenges it. (Maybe it is because we won't let other people testify.)

I love to revel in philosophical matters-especially astronomy. I study astronomy more than any other foolishness there is. I am a perfect slave to it. I am at it all the time. I have got more smoked glass than clothes. I am as familiar with the stars as the comets are. I know all the facts and figures and have all the knowledge there is concerning them. I yelp astronomy like a sun-dog, and paw the constellations like Ursa Major.

There is only one good sex. The female one.

Wit and Humor - if any difference, it is in duration - lightning and electric light. Same material, apparently; but one is vivid, and can do damage - the other fools along and enjoys elaboration.

I can't do no literary work for the rest of this year because I'm meditating another lawsuit and looking around for a defendant.

That cat will write her autograph all over your leg if you let her.

A gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years.

When it comes down to pure ornamental cursing, the native American is gifted above the sons of men.

Our consciences take no notice of pain inflicted on others until it reaches a point where it gives pain to us.

There isn't anything you can't stand if you are only born and bred to it.

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.

Never run after you own hat - others will be delighted to do it; why spoil their fun?

Wherefore, I beseech you let the dog and the onions and these people of the strange and godless names work out their several salvations from their piteous and wonderful difficulties without help of mine, for indeed their trouble is sufficient as it is, whereas an I tried to help I should but damage their cause the more and yet mayhap not live myself to see the desolation wrought.

A journalist is a reporter out of a job.

When some men discharge an obligation, you can hear the report for miles around.

In the small town of Hannibal, Missouri, when I was a boy, everybody was poor, but didn't know it; and everybody was comfortable and did know it.

Conscience, man's moral medicine chest.

Let us save the tomorrows for work.

The law is a system that protects everybody who can afford to hire a good lawyer.

To place man properly at the present time, he stands somewhere between the angels and the French.

Honesty is often the best policy, but sometimes the appearance of it is worth six of it.

In all my travels the thing that has impressed me the most is the universal brotherhood of man-what there is of it.

A mighty porterhouse steak an inch and a half thick, hot and sputtering from the griddle; dusted with fragrant pepper; enriched with little melting bits of butter of the most impeachable freshness and genuineness; the precious juices of the meat trickling out and joining the gravy, archipelagoed with mushrooms; a township or two of tender, yellowish fat gracing an out-lying district of this ample county of beefsteak; the long white bone which divides the sirloin from the tenderloin still in its place.

I have only one moral precept; never smoke more than five cigars at a time.

God rewards gamblers and fools. The crucial thing, when you win, is knowing which you were.

Golden rule: Made of hard metal so it could stand severe wear, it not being known at that time that butter would answer.

Balloon: Thing to take meteroric observations and commit suicide with.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for certain that just ain't true." Thinking that you know the future.

Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society.

I should be sorry to think it was the publishers themselves they got up this entire little flutter to enable them to unload a book that was taking too much room in their cellars, but you can never tell what a publisher will do. I have been one myself.

In writing, I shall always confine myself strictly to the truth, except when it is attended with inconvenience.

First catch your Boer, then kick him.

Even popularity can be overdone. In Rome, along at first, you are full of regrets that Michelangelo died; but by and by, you only regret that you didn't see him do it.

Good wine needs no bush; a jug is the thing.

None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try.

The southerner talks music.

Slang in a woman's mouth is not obscene, it only sounds so.

I like criticism, but it must be my way.

Every time I reform in one direction I go overboard in another.

Adam was the author of sin, and I wish he had taken out an international copyright on it.

We may not pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents.

Benefit of clergy: Half-rate on the railroad.

Human pride is not worthwhile; there is always something lying in wait to take the wind out of it.

The Autocrat of Russia possesses more power than any other man in the earth; but he cannot stop a sneeze.

Never waste a lie; you never know when you may need it.

It is impossible that a genius - at least a literary genius - can ever be discovered by his intimates; they are so close to him that he is out of focus to them and they can't get at his proportions; they can't perceive that there is any considerable difference between his bulk and their own.

It is hard enough luck being a monarch, without being a target also.