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Mark Twain quotes (138) Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth man is incurably foolish. Simple things which other animals easily learn he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox a goose a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately. Mark Twain Category: Man The best way to cheer yourself is to cheer up somebody else. Mark Twain Category: Happiness There are three kinds of lies: lies damned lies and statistics. Mark Twain Category: Lever Travel is fatal to prejudice bigotry and narrow-mindedness. Broad wholesome charitable views cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth. Mark Twain Category: Bigotry Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society. Mark Twain Category: Apparel Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out... and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel... And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for the universal brotherhood of man - with his mouth. Mark Twain Category: War When angry count four; when very angry swear. Mark Twain Category: Anger The law of work does seem utterly unfair but there it is and nothing can change it; the higher the pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it the higher shall be his pay in money also. Mark Twain Category: Work There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist. Mark Twain Category: Optimism Courage is resistance to fear mastery of fear not absence of fear. Mark Twain Category: Courage The secret source of humour itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humour in heaven. Mark Twain Category: Humor Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain. Mark Twain Category: Do There is nothing so annoying as to have two people talking when youre busy interrupting. Mark Twain Category: Conversation When in doubt tell the truth. Mark Twain Category: Doubt Familiarity breeds contempt. How accurate that is. The reason we hold truth in such respect is because we have so little opportunity to get familiar with it. Mark Twain Category: Contempt By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another mans I mean. Mark Twain Category: Adversity 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. Mark Twain Category: Promise Haint we got all the fools in town on our side? And haint that a big enough majority in any town? Mark Twain Category: Majority Reader suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. Mark Twain Category: Congress I don't know of a single foreign product that enters this country untaxed except the answer to prayer. Mark Twain Category: Praise Crank a man with a new idea until it succeeds. Mark Twain Category: Idea I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting. Mark Twain Category: Exercise Familiarity breeds contempt and children. Mark Twain Category: Children The human race has one really effective weapon and that is laughter. Mark Twain Category: Laugh It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them. Mark Twain Category: Canada Man is the only animal that blushes or needs to. Mark Twain Category: Blushing Maybe its not as bad as it sounds. Mark Twain Category: Music It may be called the Master Passion the hunger for self-approval. Mark Twain Category: Approval In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore in the Old Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesome returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. Mark Twain Category: River Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. Mark Twain Category: Habit It is just like mans vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions. Mark Twain Category: Animals There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land Again after a cheerful careless voyage. Mark Twain Category: Ship Any emotion if it is sincere is involuntary. Mark Twain Category: Emotion Fortune knocks at every man's door once in a life but in a good many cases the man is in a neighboring saloon and does not hear her. Mark Twain Category: Fortune Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isnt. Mark Twain Category: Possibility Thrusting my nose firmly between his teeth I threw him heavily to the ground on top of me. Mark Twain Category: Fight There is no such thing as the Queens English. The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares! Mark Twain Category: Immorality Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. Mark Twain Category: Opinion 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. Mark Twain Category: Country The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cant read them. Mark Twain Category: Book The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are right. Mark Twain Category: Friendship Sacred cows make the best hamburger. Mark Twain Category: Iconoclast One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that the cat has only nine lives. Mark Twain Category: Cat Don't part with your allusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. Mark Twain Category: Gone My first American ancestor gentlemen was an Indianan early Indian. Your ancestors skinned him alive and I am an orphan. All those Salem witches were ancestors of mine. Your people made it tropical for them.... The first slave brought into New England out of Africa was an ancestor of minefor I am a mixed breed an infinitely shaded and exquisite Mongrel. Mark Twain Category: Race 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. Mark Twain Category: Refined [He was] a solemn unsmiling sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity. Mark Twain Category: Age If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be a Christian. Mark Twain Category: Christianity I cannot keep from talking even at the risk of being instructive. Mark Twain Category: Speak Water taken in moderation cannot hurt anybody. Mark Twain Category: Water Thunder is good thunder is impressive; but it is lightening that does the work. Mark Twain Category: Thunder A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. Mark Twain Category: Bank You cant depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. Mark Twain Category: Depend Of the delights of this world man cares most for sexual intercourse yet he has left it out of his heaven. Mark Twain Category: Sex The principle of give and take is the principle of diplomacy - give one and take ten. Mark Twain Category: Diploma I can live for two months on a good compliment. Mark Twain Category: Compliment There is no security in life only opportunity. Mark Twain Category: Opportunity The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them. Mark Twain Category: Conservative When one has tasted watermelon he knows what the angels eat. Mark Twain Category: Easy It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race. Mark Twain Category: Enough Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand but the passages that bother me are those I do understand. Mark Twain Category: Bible I respect a man who knows how to spell a word more than one way. Mark Twain Category: Respect Next to possessing genius ones self is the power of appreciating it in others. Mark Twain Category: Genius Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising. Mark Twain Category: Advertising The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. Mark Twain Category: Diet When some men discharge an obligation you can hear the report for miles around. Mark Twain Category: Debt Denial aint just a river in Egypt. Mark Twain Category: Denial All kings is mostly rapscallions. Mark Twain Category: Kindness Love seems the swiftest but it is the slowest of growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century. Mark Twain Category: Love It were not best that we should all think alike; it is the difference of opinion that makes horse races. Mark Twain Category: Alike Behold the fool saith Put not all thine eggs in the one basket which is but a manner of saying Scatter your money and your attention; but the wise man saith Put all your eggs in the one basket and watch that basket! Mark Twain Category: Egg If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. Mark Twain Category: Truth It takes your enemy and your friend working together to hurt you to the heart: the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you. Mark Twain Category: Injury Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person. Mark Twain Category: Breeding Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. Mark Twain Category: Smile The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity. Mark Twain Category: Life Warm summer sun shine kindly here; Warm southern wind blow softly here; Green sod above lie light lie light Good night dear heart good night good night. Mark Twain Category: Death The right word may be effective but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. Mark Twain Category: Effect Adam was but human this explains it all. He did not want the apples for the apple's sake he wanted it only because it was forbidden. Mark Twain Category: Adam I have criticized absent people so often and then discovered to my humiliation that I was talking with their relatives that I have grown superstitious about that sort of thing and dropped it. Mark Twain Category: Absent In certain trying circumstances urgent circumstances desperate circumstances profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer. Mark Twain Category: Profanity There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race and finish the farce. Mark Twain Category: Housework In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards. Mark Twain Category: Education It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. Mark Twain Category: Better The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner. Mark Twain Category: Cowardice I am opposed to millionaires but it would be dangerous to offer me the position. Mark Twain Category: Wealth We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and cant read. Mark Twain Category: Jury Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion. Mark Twain Category: False Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. Mark Twain Category: Learn Grief can take care of itself but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with. Mark Twain Category: Grief Indecency vulgarity obscenity these are strictly confined to man; he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them. They hide nothing. They are not ashamed. Mark Twain Category: Shame The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. Mark Twain Category: Fear Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow. Mark Twain Category: Today The trouble isnt that there are too many fools but that the lightning isnt distributed right. Mark Twain Category: Fool Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didnt do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. Mark Twain Category: Disappointment Heaven is by favor; if it were by merit your dog would go in and you would stay out. Mark Twain Category: Heaven We are chameleons and our partialities and prejudices change place with an easy and blessed facility and we are soon wonted to the change and happy in it. Mark Twain Category: Change We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going and then go with the drove. We have two opinions: one private which we are afraid to express; and another one the one we use which we force ourselves to wear to please Mrs. Grundy until habit makes us comfortable in it and the custom of defending it presently makes us love it adore it and forget how pitifully we came by it. Look at it in politics. Mark Twain Category: Conformity Ive come loaded with statistics for Ive noticed that a man cant prove anything without statistics. Mark Twain Category: Statistics God made the Idiot for practice and then He made the School Board. Mark Twain Category: Idiots He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it inspiring the cabbages. Mark Twain Category: Top Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. Mark Twain Category: Forgive Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and blind can read. Mark Twain Category: Deaf Without fools the rest of us could not succeed. Mark Twain Category: Unsorted There are two times in a mans life when he should not speculate: when he cant afford it and when he can. Mark Twain Category: Money Be good and you will be lonesome. Mark Twain Category: Good When we remember we are all mad the mysteries of life disappear and life stands explained. Mark Twain Category: Insanity Its spring feveryou don't know quite what it is you want but it just fairly makes your heart ache you want it so. Mark Twain Category: Spring It is easier to stay out than get out. Mark Twain Category: Out Make it a point to 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. Mark Twain Category: Duty Few sinners are saved after the fiirst twenty minutes of a sermon. Mark Twain Category: Serious Don't go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing; it was here first. Mark Twain Category: Dogma I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I cant find anybody who can tell me what they want. Mark Twain Category: Teach The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want drink what you don't like and do what youd druther not. Mark Twain Category: Health We are called the nation of inventors. And we are. We could still claim that title and wear its loftiest honors if we had stopped with the first thing we had ever invented human liberty. Mark Twain Category: Invention Necessity is the mother of taking chances. Mark Twain Category: Necessity The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion are adversaries some are insane. Mark Twain Category: Adversary I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know. Mark Twain Category: Answer Honesty is the best policy when there is money in it. Mark Twain Category: Honest It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation played with confidence stands a good chance to deceive. Mark Twain Category: Quotations I don't give a damn for a man who can spell a word only one way. Mark Twain Category: Word I have had an aversion to good spelling for sixty years and more merely for the reason that when I was a boy there was not a thing I could do creditably except spell according to the book. It was a poor and mean distinction and I early learned to disenjoy it. I suppose that this is because the ability to spell correctly is a talent not an acquirement. There is some dignity about an acquirement because it is a product of your own labor. It is wages earned whereas to be able to do a thing merely by the grace of God and not by your own effort transfers the distinction to our heavenly home where possibly it is a matter of pride and satisfaction but it leaves you naked and bankrupt. Mark Twain Category: Spell Always do right this will gratify some people and astonish the rest. Mark Twain Category: Astonish Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed. Mark Twain Category: Success It was wonderful to find America but it would have been more wonderful to miss it. Mark Twain Category: Ambition The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice. Mark Twain Category: History All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence and then success is sure. Mark Twain Category: Confidence There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. Mark Twain Category: Fact Write without pay until somebody offers pay. If nobody offers within three years the candidate may look upon this circumstance with the most implicit confidence as the sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for. Mark Twain Category: Writing The miracle or the power that elevates the few is to be found in their industry application and perseverance under the promptings of a brave determined spirit. Mark Twain Category: Gravity Religion consists of a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain. Mark Twain Category: Religion Golf is a good walk spoiled. Mark Twain Category: Golf If men bore children there would only be one born in each family. Mark Twain Category: Baby Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved. Mark Twain Category: Funerals What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin. Mark Twain Category: Tax What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight what counts is the size of the fight in the dog. Mark Twain Category: Dog Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its one sure defense. Mark Twain Category: Defense Truth is more of a stranger than fiction but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain Category: Fiction |
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