A Quote by Mark Twain

There are two reasons why anybody buys anything. The real reason, and the reason they give you.

Mark Twain

Quote Topics

Anybody Anything Give Real Real Reason Reason Reasons Two Why

Quote Author

Mark Twain
American - Writer
November 30, 1835 - April 21, 1910

A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason.

J. P. Morgan

A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason. Let us be like the man of the frontier and always reveal with utmost honesty our real reasons for all that we do.

J. P. Morgan

The human animal is a beast that eventually has to die. If he's got money, he buys and he buys and he buys. The reason he buys everything he can is because of some crazy hope that one of the things he buys will be life everlasting.

Burl Ives

We hear in these days of scientific enlightenment a great deal of discussion about the efficacy of Prayer. Many reasons are given why we should not pray. Others give reasons why we should pray. Very little is said of the reason we do pray. The reason is simple: We pray because we cannot help praying.

William James

When people give you their stated reason for doing something always assume they are giving you a reason that sounds good, but not the real reason.

James Altucher

Good poems do a lot of things at once. Often, by doing so, they encourage us to acknowledge mixed and incompatible feelings. Good poems, like good works of history, resist monocausal explanations for anything. There's not one reason why I am angry or excited or hopeful, when I feel those things. And there's not one reason why President Obama won two elections. And there's not one reason why Donald Trump won the most recent presidential election.

Stephen Burt

I had it then. Soda fought for fun, Steve for hatred, Darry for pride, and Two-Bit for conformity. Why do I fight? I thought, and couldn't think of any real good reason. There isn't any real good reason for fighting except self-defense.

S. E. Hinton

You've got this guy who refuses to die for some reason whether it be a physical or metaphysical reason or spiritual reason so you can do anything. You can kill off anybody and you can still bring them back because he's kind of half there and half in reality, you know?

Josh Brolin

According to Adams, Jefferson proposed that he, Adams, do the writing [pf the Declaration of Independence], but that he declined, telling Jefferson he must do it. Why?" Jefferson asked, as Adams would recount. Reasons enough," Adams said. What can be your reasons?" Reason first: you are a Virginian and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second: I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third: You can write ten times better than I can.

David McCullough

There's a reason why trainspotters are not girls, there's a reason why there's the myth of the slightly autistic male genius, there's a reason why Gertrude Stein believed that her self-presentation was male. One could argue that was Susan Sontag also. The things that we associate with femaleness are not the single-minded, exclusive pursuit of a vocation, whether it be art or anything else. It is not a model that is widespread in our culture, it's not something we think of for women.

Claire Messud

There are two excesses: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason. The supreme achievement of reason is to realise that there is a limit to reason. Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it. It is merely feeble if it does not go as far as to realise that.

Blaise Pascal

It doesn't matter how scary someone may seem - they have two legs, two arms and a heartbeat just like me. There's no reason why I wouldn't want to fight anybody.

Chris Eubank Jr.

There is no reason in the world why we shouldn't fight for the preservation of a chance to live freely; no reason why we shouldn't suffer to uphold that which we want to endure... May God give me courage to do my duty and not falter.

Nile Kinnick

There is no reason why India and Pakistan are fighting. Similarly, there is no reason when two siblings fight.

Sanya Malhotra

I think authors are just realizing there's no real reason to feel limited to a narrow set of genre rules in their writing. There's no reason a mystery novel can't have fantastic elements in it. Similarly, there's no reason why your epic fantasy series can't have elements of a mystery.