Top 2442 Quotes & Sayings by Mark Twain - Page 5

Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.

The truth hurts, but silence kills.

There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press

Don't wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of itself.

God created war so that Americans would learn geography.

Great things can happen when you don't care who gets the credit.

If you have no will to change it, you have no right to criticize it.

Temper is what gets most of us into trouble. Pride is what keeps us there.

If we would learn what the human race really is at bottom, we need only observe it in election times.

The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think.

The newspaper that obstructs the law on a trivial pretext, for money's sake, is a dangerous enemy to the public weal. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.

The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.

Keep away from 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.

Congress: America's only true criminal class.

Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.

Our lives, our liberty, and our property are never in greater danger than when Congress is in session.

Just because you’re taught that something’s right and everyone believes it’s right, it don’t make it right.

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.

A little more kindness, A little less speed, A little more giving, A little less greed, A little more smile, A little less frown, A little less kicking, A man while he's down, A little more "We", A little less "I", A little more laugh, A little less cry, A little more flowers, On the pathway of life, And fewer on graves, At the end of the strife.

Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.

Good judgement is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement.

They did not know it was impossible so they did it

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.

Those who do not read have no advantage over those who cannot read.

There is nothing to be learned from the second kick of a mule.

If ignorance is bliss, why isn't the world happier?

Don't dream your life, but live your dream

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

Some people get an education without going to college. The rest get it after they get out.

Comparison is the death of joy.

We are all ignorant; just about different things.

The trouble is not in dying for a friend, but in finding a friend worth dying for.

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.

An open mind leaves a chance for someone to drop a worthwhile thought in it.

A tax is a fine for doing well, a fine is a tax for doing wrong.

Most people can't bear to sit in church for an hour on Sundays. How are they supposed to live somewhere very similar to it for eternity?

Education is what you must acquire without any interference from your schooling.

Few things are more irritating than when someone who is wrong is also very effective in making his point.

You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?

A little lie can travel half way 'round the world while Truth is still lacing up her boots.

There is no security in life, only opportunity.

A Patriot is someone who stands for his country always, and for his government when it is deserved.

A pessimist is a well-informed optimist.

Make your vocation your vacation. That is the secret to success.

When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Kentucky, because everything there happens 20 years after it happens anywhere else.

I cannot help but notice that there is no problem between us that cannot be solved by your departure.

Worrying is paying interest on a debt you might not even owe.

A good lawyer knows the law; a clever one takes the judge to lunch.

If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be — a Christian.

If your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

Behind every successful man, there is a woman - And behind every unsuccessful man, there are two.

The nation is divided, half patriots and half traitors, and no man can tell which from which.

Never have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.

Most men die at 27, we just bury them at 72.

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?

The secret of getting ahead is getting started

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

A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo and doesn't.

Some people give their problems swimming lessons instead of drowning them.