Mark Twain - Wikiquote Mark Twain Jump to: navigation , search Samuel Langhorne Clemens: Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens ( November 30 , 1835 – April 21 , 1910 ), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American humorist, novelist, writer, and lecturer. See also: Quotes[ edit ] I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatsoever. "Answers to Correspondents", The Californian , 17 June 1865. Anthologized in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches (1867). I'll risk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county. " The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County "; first published as "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog" in the New York Saturday Press , 18 November 1865; revised by the author and reprinted the following month in The Californian ; first anthologized in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches (1867), ed.

John Paul. I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog. "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" (1865). He was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie. "Brief Biographical Sketch of George Washington", The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches (1867), ed. John Paul Cited by: William E. Phipps, Mark Twain's Religion , Mercer University Press, 2003, p. 18 Richard Locke, Critical Children: The Use of Childhood in Ten Great Novels , Columbia University Press, p. 12 I have seen Chinamen abused and maltreated in all the mean, cowardly ways possible to the invention of a degraded nature, but I never saw a policeman interfere in the matter and I never saw a Chinaman righted in a court of justice for wrongs thus done him. "The Treaty With China", article in The New York Tribune, 1868-08-04. Quoted in Mark Twain's Letters, volume ii, p. 239 .

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. "The Facts Concerning the Recent Resignation", described by the author as written about 1867, first published in Mark Twain's Sketches, New and Old ‎ (1875). Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience — 4000 critics. Letter to Pamela Clemens Moffet, 9 November 1869, in Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain's Letters: Arranged with Comment (1917), Vol. 1, p. 168 He is now fast rising from affluence to poverty. "Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's Farm" (1869), anthologized in Mark Twain's Sketches (1872). Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough. "A Mysterious Visit", Buffalo Express , 19 March 1870. Anthologized in Mark Twain's Sketches, New and Old‎ (1875).

Formerly, if you killed a man, it was possible that you were insane—but now, if you, having friends and money, kill a man, it is evidence that you are a lunatic. "A New Crime", first published as "The New Crime" in the Buffalo Express , 16 April 1870. Anthologized in Mark Twain's Sketches, New and Old‎ (1875). Is not this insanity plea becoming rather common? Is it not so common that the reader confidently expects to see it offered in every criminal case that comes before the courts? [...] Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against insanity. "A New Crime" (1870) It [the press] has scoffed at religion till it has made scoffing popular.

It has defended official criminals, on party pretexts, until it has created a United States Senate whose members are incapable of determining what crime against law and the dignity of their own body is—they are so morally blind—and it has made light of dishonesty till we have as a result a Congress which contracts to work for a certain sum and then deliberately steals additional wages out of the public pocket and is pained and surprised that anybody should worry about a little thing like that. "License of the Press", an address before the Monday Evening Club, Hartford (1873). Benjamin Franklin did a great many notable things for his country, and made her young name to be honored in many lands as the mother of such a son. It is not the idea of this memoir to ignore that or cover it up. No; the simple idea of it is to snub those pretentious maxims of his, which he worked up with a great show of originality out of truisms that had become wearisome platitudes as early as the dispersion from Babel. "The Late Benjamin Franklin", The Galaxy , Vol. 10, No. 1, July 1870 [1] .

Anthologized in Mark Twain's Sketches, New and Old‎ (1875). This poor little one-horse town. "The Undertaker's Chat", first published as "A Reminiscence of the Back Settlements" in The Galaxy , Vol. 10, No. 5, November 1870 [2] . Anthologized in Mark Twain's Sketches, New and Old‎ (1875). A baby is an inestimable blessing and bother. Letter to Annie Moffett Webster (September 1, 1876). The funniest things are the forbidden. "Notebook 18 (February–September 1879)" in Mark Twain's Notebooks & Journals, Vol. 2 (1975), ed. Frederick Anderson, ISBN 0520025423 , p. 304. We haven't all had the good fortune to be ladies; we haven't all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground. Answering a toast, "To the Babies," at a banquet in honor of General U.S.

Grant (November 14, 1879). The Writings of Mark Twain, Vol. 20 (1899), ed. Charles Dudley Warner, p. 397 Among the three or four million cradles now rocking in the land are some which this nation would preserve for ages as sacred things, if we could know which ones they are. "To the Babies" (November 14, 1879). Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. Draft manuscript (c.1881), quoted by Albert Bigelow Paine in Mark Twain: A Biography (1912), p. 724 . Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any. "Advice to Youth", speech to The Saturday Morning Club, Boston, 15 April 1882. Mark Twain Speaking (1976), ed. Paul Fatout, p. 169 The difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter — it's the difference between a lightning bug and the lightning.

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? "Consistency", paper read at the Hartford Monday Evening Club on 5 December 1887. The Complete Essays of Mark Twain, p. 582 (First published in the 1923 edition of Mark Twain's Speeches, ed. Albert Bigelow Paine, pp. 120-130, where it is incorrectly dated "following the Blaine-Cleveland campaign, 1884." (See Mark Twain's Notebooks & Journals (1979), ed. Frederick Anderson, Vol. 3, p. 41, footnote 92 ) Many reprints repeat Paine's dating.) Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world — and never will.

"Consistency" (5 December 1887). This quote is engraved on Twain's bust in the National Hall of Fame. He [George Washington Cable] has taught me to abhor and detest the Sabbath day and hunt up new and troublesome ways to dishonor it. Letter to William Dean Howells, 27 February 1885, in Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain's letters: Arranged with Comment (1917), Vol. 2, p. 450 An experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar. " The Private History of a Campaign That Failed ", The Century , Vol. 31, No. 2, December 1885 [3] . Anthologized in The American Claimant, and Other Stories and Sketches (1898). It does look as if Massachusetts were in a fair way to embarrass me with kindnesses this year.

In the first place, a Massachusetts judge has just decided in open court that a Boston publisher may sell, not only his own property in a free and unfettered way, but also may as freely sell property which does not belong to him but to me; property which he has not bought and which I have not sold. Under this ruling I am now advertising that judge's homestead for sale, and, if I make as good a sum out of it as I expect, I shall go on and sell out the rest of his property. Letter of acceptance of membership to Concord Free Trade Club (March 28, 1885): Mark Twain, his life and work: a biographical sketch (1892), William Montgomery Clemens, Clemens Pub. Co. As I slowly grow wise I briskly grow cautious. "English as She Is Taught", The Century , Vol. 33, No. 6, April 1887 [4] . A slightly abridged version was reprinted as Introduction to Caroline B.

Le Row, English as She Is Taught: Genuine Answers to Some Examination Questions Asked in Our Public Schools (1901) A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle. Quoting a schoolchild in "English as She Is Taught". All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure. Mark Twain's Notebook, 1887 Letter to Cordelia Welsh Foote (Cincinnati), 2 December 1887. Letter reprinted in Benjamin De Casseres's When Huck Finn Went Highbrow (1934). The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning. Letter to George Bainton, 15 October 1888, solicited for and printed in George Bainton, The Art of Authorship: Literary Reminiscences, Methods of Work, and Advice to Young Beginners (1890), pp. 87–88 .

Twain repeated the lightning bug/lightning comparison in several contexts, and credited Josh Billings for the idea: Josh Billings defined the difference between humor and wit as that between the lightning bug and the lightning. Speech at the 145th annual dinner of St. Andrew's Society, New York, 30 November 1901, Mark Twain Speaking (1976), ed. Paul Fatout, p. 424 Billings' original wording was characteristically affected: Don't mistake vivacity for wit, thare iz about az mutch difference az thare iz between lightning and a lightning bug. Josh Billings' Old Farmer's Allminax, "January 1871" . Also in Everybody's Friend, or; Josh Billing's Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor (1874), p. 304 . Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it. The American Claimant, foreword (1892). I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position. American Claimant (1892).

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. Notebook entry, January or February 1894, Mark Twain's Notebook, ed. Albert Bigelow Paine (1935), p. 240 James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London, but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness; the report of my death was an exaggeration. White subsequently reported this in "Mark Twain Amused," New York Journal, 2 June 1897. White also recounts the incident in "Mark Twain as a Newspaper Reporter," The Outlook, Vol. 96, 24 December 1910 Variant: I said - 'Say the report is greatly exaggerated'. "Chapters from My Autobiography", The North American Review, 21 September 1906, p. 160. Mark Twain Misquote: The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. Note: This paraphrase or misquote may be more popular than the original. A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.

More Tramps Abroad (1897). The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd druther not. "What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us?" , in How to Tell a Story and Other Essays (1897). Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments flit away and a sunny spirit takes their place. "What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us?" (1897). Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. Commonly quoted as: "First get your facts, then you can distort them at your leisure." Rudyard Kipling, An Interview with Mark Twain, p. 180, From sea to sea: letters of travel, 1899, Doubleday & McClure Company. eBooks@Adelaide I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off.

Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I’m not feeling so well myself. Speech to the Savage Club, 9 June 1899, in Mark Twain's Speeches (1910), ed. William Dean Howells, pp. 277–278 . (Possibly fabricated from a paraphrase in Aaron Watson, The Savage Club: a Medley of History, Anecdote, and Reminiscence (1907), pp. 126–129 ). He had only one vanity; he thought he could give advice better than any other person. " The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg ", ch. I, in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900). There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory. "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg", ch. III, in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900).

I wanted to damage every man in the place, and every woman--and not in their bodies or in their estate, but in their vanity--the place where feeble and foolish people are most vulnerable. So I disguised myself and came back and studied you. You were easy game. You had an old and lofty reputation for honesty, and naturally you were proud of it — it was your treasure of treasures, the very apple of your eye. As soon as I found out that you carefully and vigilantly kept yourselves and your children out of temptation, I knew how to proceed. Why, you simple creatures, the weakest of all weak things is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire. "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg", ch. III, in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900). It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people [the Filipinos] free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.

New York Herald, October 15, 1900, quoted in A Pen Warmed Up In Hell:Mark Twain in Protest, edited by Frederick Anderson, Harper & Row, 1979. Definition of a classic — something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read. Quoting or paraphrasing a Professor Winchester in "Disappearance of Literature" , speech at the Nineteenth Century Club, New York, 20 November 1900, in Mark Twain's Speeches (1910), ed. William Dean Howells, p. 194 The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples — that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at. "My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It" , in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900). Your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter.

Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug,—push it a little—crowd it a little—weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand. "The Chronicle of Young Satan" (ca. 1897–1900, unfinished), published posthumously in Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (1969), ed. William Merriam Gibson ( pp. 165–166 in the 2005 paperback printing, ISBN 0520246950 ). Whose property is my body? Probably mine. I so regard it. If I experiment with it, who must be answerable? I, not the State. If I choose injudiciously, does the State die? Oh no. “Osteopathy” (1901), in Mark Twain's Speeches, p. 253 . ...[H]eaven for climate, Hell for society.

Speech to the Acorn Society (1901) also given as: "Heaven for climate, Hell for companionship." (unsourced) Honesty is the best policy — when there is money in it. Speech to Eastman College (1901). Now what I contend is that my body is my own, at least I have always so regarded it. If I do harm through my experimenting with it, it is I who suffer, not the state. Address to the New York General Assembly (1901). The Blessings-of-Civilization Trust, wisely and cautiously administered, is a Daisy. There is more money in it, more territory, more sovereignty, and other kinds of emolument, than there is in any other game that is played. But Christendom has been playing it badly of late years, and must certainly suffer by it, in my opinion. She has been so eager to get every stake that appeared on the green cloth, that the People who Sit in Darkness have noticed it -- they have noticed it, and have begun to show alarm. They have become suspicious of the Blessings of Civilization. Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.

To the Young People's Society, Greenpoint Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn (February 16, 1901). To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add the sheep was a tautology. St. Louis Post-Dispatch (30 May 1902); also in Mark Twain : A Life, p. 611. Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that "plagiarism" farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul — let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances — is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing.

When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men — but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his. But not enough to signify. It is merely a Waterloo. It is Wellington's battle, in some degree, and we call it his; but there are others that contributed. It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite — that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that. Letter to Helen Keller , after she had been accused of plagiarism for one of her early stories (17 March 1903), published in Mark Twain's Letters, Vol. 1 (1917) edited by Albert Bigelow Paine, p. 731. Man has been here 32,000 years.

That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is, I dunno. If the Eiffel Tower were now representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; and anybody would perceive that the skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno. Was the World Made for Man? (1903): also p. 106, What is man?: and other philosophical writings, Volume 19 of Works, 1993, Mark Twain, Paul Baender, University of California Press. To put it in rude, plain, unpalatable words — true patriotism, real patriotism: loyalty not to a Family and a Fiction, but a loyalty to the Nation itself!

..."Remember this, take this to heart, live by it, die for it if necessary: that our patriotism is medieval, outworn, obsolete; that the modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation ALL the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it." [Czar Nicholas II] (1905) Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays, 1891-1910 (1992) ed. Louis J. Budd He is a stranger to me, but he is a most remarkable man — and I am the other one. Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known, and I know the rest. Statement (1906) in Mark Twain in Eruption: Hitherto Unpublished Pages About Men and Events (1940) edited by Bernard DeVoto The only reason why God created man is because he was disappointed with the monkey. Autobiographical Dictation (1906). A powerful agent is the right word.

Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt. Essay on William Dean Howells (1906). 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. The Gorky Incident (1906). Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment. The Gorky Incident (1906). "In God We Trust." Now then, after that legend had remained there forty years or so, unchallenged and doing no harm to anybody, the President suddenly "threw a fit" the other day, as the popular expression goes, and ordered that remark to be removed from our coinage. Mr. Carnegie granted that the matter was not of consequence, that a coin had just exactly the same value without the legend as with it, and he said he had no fault to find with Mr.

Roosevelt's action but only with his expressed reasons for the act. The President had ordered the suppression of that motto because a coin carried the name of God into improper places, and this was a profanation of the Holy Name. Carnegie said the name of God is used to being carried into improper places everywhere and all the time, and that he thought the President's reasoning rather weak and poor. I thought the same, and said, "But that is just like the President. If you will notice, he is very much in the habit of furnishing a poor reason for his acts while there is an excellent reason staring him in the face, which he overlooks. There was a good reason for removing that motto; there was, indeed, an unassailably good reason — in the fact that the motto stated a lie. If this nation has ever trusted in God, that time has gone by; for nearly half a century almost its entire trust has been in the Republican party and the dollar–mainly the dollar. I recognize that I am only making an assertion and furnishing no proof; I am sorry, but this is a habit of mine; sorry also that I am not alone in it; everybody seems to have this disease.

Take an instance: the removal of the motto fetched out a clamor from the pulpit; little groups and small conventions of clergymen gathered themselves together all over the country, and one of these little groups, consisting of twenty-two ministers, put up a prodigious assertion unbacked by any quoted statistics and passed it unanimously in the form of a resolution: the assertion, to wit, that this is a Christian country. Why, Carnegie, so is hell. Those clergymen know that, inasmuch as "Strait is the way and narrow is the gate, and few — few — are they that enter in thereat" has had the natural effect of making hell the only really prominent Christian community in any of the worlds; but we don't brag of this and certainly it is not proper to brag and boast that America is a Christian country when we all know that certainly five-sixths of our population could not enter in at the narrow gate. Statements (c.

December 1907), in Mark Twain In Eruption : Hitherto Unpublished Pages About Men And Events (1940) edited by Bernard Augustine De Voto I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough. Speech (23 September 1907). Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work. Letter to an Unidentified Person (1908). When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself. Is Shakespeare Dead? (1909), §11, as reprinted in Essays and Sketches of Mark Twain (1995), ed. Stuart Miller, ISBN 1566198798 Adam's temperament was the first command the Deity ever issued to a human being on this planet.

And it was the only command Adam would never be able to disobey. It said, "Be weak, be water, be characterless, be cheaply persuadable." The later command, to let the fruit alone, was certain to be disobeyed. Not by Adam himself, but by his temperament — which he did not create and had no authority over. "The Turning Point of my Life", §3, Harper's Bazar, February 1910, as reprinted in Essays and Sketches of Mark Twain (1995), ed. Stuart Miller, ISBN 1566198798 The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. marginal note in Moncure D. Conway's Sacred Anthology quoted by Albert Bigelow Paine in Mark Twain: A Biography (1912). You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is. Europe and Elsewhere. Corn Pone Opinions (1925). We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking.

And out of it we get an aggregation which we consider a boon. Its name is public opinion. It is held in reverence. Some think it the voice of God. Corn-Pone Opinions (1925). Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. More Maxims of Mark (1927) edited by Merle Johnson Always acknowledge a fault frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you opportunity to commit more. More Maxims of Mark (1927) edited by Merle Johnson Humor must not professedly teach, and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever. By forever, I mean thirty years. Mark Twain in eruption: hitherto unpublished pages about men and events, 1940, Mark Twain, Bernard Augustine De Voto, Harper & brothers. This appears to be the origin of the variant: If you would have your work last forever, and by forever I mean fifty years, it must neither overtly preach nor overtly teach, but it must covertly preach and covertly teach. Attributed to Twain by J.

Michael Straczynski in The complete book of scriptwriting, 2002, Writer's Digest Books. A critic never made or killed a book or a play. The people themselves are the final judges. It is their opinion that counts. After all, the final test is truth. But the trouble is that most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession and therefore are most economical in its use. Said to portrait painter Samuel Johnson Woolf, cited in Here am I (1941), Samuel Johnson Woolf; this has often been abbreviated: Most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use. It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare. Mark Twain in Eruption: Hitherto Unpublished Pages About Men and Events (1940) edited by Bernard DeVoto It is not worth while to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible.

Mark Twain in Eruption: Hitherto Unpublished Pages About Men and Events (1940) edited by Bernard DeVoto Jesus died to save men — a small thing for an immortal to do, & didn't save many, anyway; but if he had been damned for the race that would have been act of a size proper to a god, & would have saved the whole race. However, why should anybody want to save the human race, or damn it either? Does God want its society? Does Satan? Notebook #42. A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar. Mark Twain and I by Opie Read I do not take any credit to my better-balanced head because I never went crazy on Presbyterianism. We go too slow for that. You never see us ranting and shouting and tearing up the ground, You never heard of a Presbyterian going crazy on religion. Notice us, and you will see how we do.

We get up of a Sunday morning and put on the best harness we have got and trip cheerfully down town; we subside into solemnity and enter the church; we stand up and duck our heads and bear down on a hymn book propped on the pew in front when the minister prays; we stand up again while our hired choir are singing, and look in the hymn book and check off the verses to see that they don't shirk any of the stanzas; we sit silent and grave while the minister is preaching, and count the waterfalls and bonnets furtively, and catch flies; we grab our hats and bonnets when the benediction is begun; when it is finished, we shove, so to speak. No frenzy, no fanaticism --no skirmishing; everything perfectly serene. You never see any of us Presbyterians getting in a sweat about religion and trying to massacre the neighbors. Let us all be content with the tried and safe old regular religions, and take no chances on wildcat. "The New Wildcat Religion". Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered — either by themselves or by others.

But for the Civil War, Lincoln and Grant and Sherman and Sheridan would not have been discovered, nor have risen into notice. … I have touched upon this matter in a small book which I wrote a generation ago and which I have not published as yet — Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven. When Stormfield arrived in heaven he … was told that … a shoemaker … was the most prodigious military genius the planet had ever produced. The Autobiography of Mark Twain (1959 edition, edited by Charles Neider). Adam, at Eve's grave: Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden. Eve's Diary. Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed. Extracts From Adam's Diary (1906) An injurious lie is an uncommendable thing; and so, also, and in the same degree, is an injurious truth—a fact that is recognized by the law of libel . On the Decay of the Art of Lying The highest perfection of politeness is only a beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of ungraceful and gilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying.

On the Decay of the Art of Lying , published in The Stolen White Elephant: Etc, Pages 220-221 (1882) Compliments make me vain: & when I am vain, I am insolent & overbearing. It is a pity, too, because I love compliments. I love them even when they are not so. My child, I can live on a good compliment two weeks with nothing else to eat. I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up. Ch. 7. They spell it "Vinci" and pronounce it "Vinchy". Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce. Ch. 19. I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo — that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture — great in every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast — for luncheon — for dinner — for tea — for supper — for between meals. I like a change, occasionally. Ch. 27. Enough, enough, enough! Say no more! Lump the whole thing! say that the Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo! Ch.

27. Guides cannot master the subtleties of the American joke. Ch. 27. I wish Europe would let Russia annihilate Turkey a little--not much, but enough to make it difficult to find the place again without a divining-rod or a diving-bell. Ch. 42. Ch. 54 The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They looked curiously at the costumes we had brought from the wilds of America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes. They noticed that we looked out for expenses and got what we conveniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in the mischief we came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language. Ch. 61. Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.

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. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR. Notice You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. Ch. 1. Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches. Ch. 2. We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't often that we laughed, only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all, that night, nor the next, nor the next. Ch. 12.

Pilgrim's Progress, about a man that left his family, it didn't say why. I read considerable in it now and then. The statements was interesting, but tough. Ch. 17. There warn't anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't go to church only when they've got to; but a hog is different. Ch. 18. We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft. Ch. 18.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)[ edit ] Why, it was like reading about France and the French, before the ever memorable and blessed Revolution, which swept a thousand years of such villany away in one swift tidal-wave of blood -- one: a settlement of that hoary debt in the proportion of half a drop of blood for each hogshead of it that had been pressed by slow tortures out of that people in the weary stretch of ten centuries of wrong and shame and misery the like of which was not to be mated but in hell. There were two "Reigns of Terror," if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break?

What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror -- that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves. Ch. 13 The citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth's political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal, he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him: it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the duty of others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does. Ch. 13. My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders.

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, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death. Ch. 13. The pilgrims were human beings. Otherwise they would have acted differently. They had come a long and difficult journey, and now when the journey was nearly finished, and they learned that the main thing they had come for had ceased to exist, they didn't do as horses or cats or angle-worms would probably have done — turn back and get at something profitable — no, anxious as they had before been to see the miraculous fountain, they were as much as forty times as anxious now to see the place where it had used to be. There is no accounting for human beings. Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising. Ch. 22. Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth. Ch. 22.

It is a mystery that is hidden from me by reason that the emergency requiring the fathoming of it hath not in my life-days occurred, and so, not having no need to know this thing, I abide barren of the knowledge. Following the Equator (1897)[ edit ] These wisdoms are for the luring of youth toward high moral altitudes. The author did not gather them from practice, but from observation. To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble. The Pudd'nhead Maxims, preface When in doubt, tell the truth. Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. II Prosperity is the best protector of principle. Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. II ; as cited in Mark Twain at your Fingertips : A Book of Quotations, ed. Caroline Thomas Hornsberger, Courier Corp. (2009), p. 385 It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right. Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. III Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.

Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. V Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it. Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. VII It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. VIII There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous and shallow: Yet it was the schoolboy who said "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. XII Truth is stranger than fiction — to some people, but I am measurably familiar with it. Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. XV Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. XV 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. Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch.

XX Man will do many things to get himself loved; he will do all things to get himself envied. Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. XXI "Classic." A book which people praise and don't read. Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. XXV Nearly all black and brown skins are beautiful, but a beautiful white skin is rare. Ch. XLI It is wonderful, the power of a faith like that, that can make multitudes upon multitudes of the old and weak and the young and frail enter without hesitation or complaint upon such incredible journeys and endure the resultant miseries without repining. It is done in love, or it is done in fear; I do not know which it is. No matter what the impulse is, the act born of it is beyond imagination marvelous to our kind of people, the cold whites.

Online at gutenberg.org This last summer, when I was on my way back to Vienna from the Appetite-Cure in the mountains, I fell over a cliff in the twilight, and broke some arms and legs and one thing or another, and by good luck was found by some peasants who had lost an ass, and they carried me to the nearest habitation, which was one of those large, low, thatch-roofed farm-houses, with apartments in the garret for the family, and a cunning little porch under the deep gable decorated with boxes of bright colored flowers and cats; on the ground floor a large and light sitting-room, separated from the milch-cattle apartment by a partition; and in the front yard rose stately and fine the wealth and pride of the house, the manure-pile. That sentence is Germanic , and shows that I am acquiring that sort of mastery of the art and spirit of the language which enables a man to travel all day in one sentence without changing cars. Book I, Ch. 1 No one doubts—certainly not I— that the mind exercises a powerful influence over the body.

From the beginning of time, the sorcerer, the interpreter of dreams, the fortune-teller, the charlatan, the quack, the wild medicine-man, the educated physician, the mesmerist, and the hypnotist have made use of the client's imagination to help them in their work. They have all recognized the potency and availability of that force. Physicians cure many patients with a bread pill; they know that where the disease is only a fancy, the patient's confidence in the doctor will make the bread pill effective. Book I, Ch. 4 When I was a boy a farmer's wife who lived five miles from our village had great fame as a faith-doctor—that was what she called herself. Sufferers came to her from all around, and she laid her hand upon them and said, "Have faith—it is all that is necessary," and they went away well of their ailments. She was not a religious woman, and pretended to no occult powers. She said that the patient's faith in her did the work. Several times I saw her make immediate cures of severe toothaches. My mother was the patient.

In Austria there is a peasant who drives a great trade in this sort of industry, and has both the high and the low for patients. He gets into prison every now and then for practising without a diploma, but his business is as brisk as ever when he gets out, for his work is unquestionably successful and keeps his reputation high. In Bavaria there is a man who performed so many great cures that he had to retire from his profession of stage-carpentering in order to meet the demand of his constantly increasing body of customers. He goes on from year to year doing his miracles, and has become very rich. He pretends to no religious helps, no supernatural aids, but thinks there is something in his make-up which inspires the confidence of his patients, and that it is this confidence which does the work, and not some mysterious power issuing from himself. Ch. 4 Within the last quarter of a century, in America, several sects of curers have appeared under various names and have done notable things in the way of healing ailments without the use of medicines.

There are the Mind Cure, the Faith Cure, the Prayer Cure, the Mental Science Cure, and the Christian-Science Cure; and apparently they all do their miracles with the same old, powerful instrument—the patient's imagination. Differing names, but no difference in the process. But they do not give that instrument the credit; each sect claims that its way differs from the ways of the others. They all achieve some cures, there is no question about it; and the Faith Cure and the Prayer Cure probably do no harm when they do no good, since they do not forbid the patient to help out the cure with medicines if he wants to; but the others bar medicines, and claim ability to cure every conceivable human ailment through the application of their mental forces alone. There would seem to be an element of danger here. It has the look of claiming too much, I think. Public confidence would probably be increased if less were claimed. Book I, Ch. 4 When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious matters.

When a thoughtful and unblessed Mohammedan examines the Westminster Catechism, he knows that beyond any question I am spiritually insane. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can prove anything to a lunatic — for that is a part of his insanity and the evidence of it. He cannot prove to me that I am insane, for my mind has the same defect that afflicts his. All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it; none but the Republicans and Mugwumps know it. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats and Mugwumps can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane. Dilletantenaufdringlichkeiten. Stadtverordnetenversammlungen. These things are not words, they are alphabetical processions. And they are not rare; one can open a German newspaper any time and see them marching majestically across the page,—and if he has any imagination he can see the banners and hear the music, too. They impart a martial thrill to the meekest subject. I take a great interest in these curiosities.

"Whenever I come across a good one, I stuff it and put it in my museum. In this way I have made quite a valuable collection. When I get duplicates, I exchange with other collectors, and thus increase the variety of my stock. Here are some specimens which I lately bought at an auction sale of the effects of a bankrupt bric-a-brac hunter: Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen. Wiederherstellungsbestrebungen. Waffenstillstandsunterhandlungen. Of course when one of these grand mountain ranges goes stretching across the printed page, it adorns and ennobles that literary landscape,—but at the same time it is a great distress to the new student, for it blocks up his way; he cannot crawl under it, or climb over it or tunnel through it. So he resorts to the dictionary for help; but there is no help there. The dictionary must draw the line somewhere,—so it leaves this sort of words out. And it is right, because these long things are hardly legitimate words, but are rather combinations of words, and the inventor of them ought to have been killed. Bible Teaching and Religious Practice . During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so.

the Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry. Who discovered that there was no such thing as a witch—the priest, the parson? No, these never discover anything. … There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them remain. France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country. God's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn. France has usually been governed by prostitutes. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.

Familiarity breeds contempt — and children. Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person. Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them. Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century. Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all — the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved. Memorandum written on his deathbed Surely the test of a novel's characters is that you feel a strong interest in them and their affairs—the good to be successful, the bad to suffer failure. Well, in John Ward, you feel no divided interest, no discriminating interest—you want them all to land in hell together, and right away. About Margaret Deland's book John Ward, Preacher. Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion. None but the dead have free speech. p. 393. What is the difference between a taxidermist & a tax-collector?

The taxidermist only takes your skin. p. 379. Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship God, & over these ideals they dispute & cannot unite — but they all worship money. p. 343. You can't depend on your judgment when your imagination is out of focus. p. 344. It is a pity we can't escape from life when we are young. p. 120 ...when the human race is not grotesque it is because it is asleep and losing its opportunity. p. 127 There has never been a Protestant boy nor a Protestant girl whose mind the Bible has not soiled. p. 135 There isn't anything so grotesque or so incredible that the average human being can't believe it. p. 136 No accident ever comes late; it always arrives precisely on time. p. 239 ...now...that I am a wise person. As for me, I wish there were some more of us in the world, for I find it lonesome. p. 281 Carlyle said "a lie cannot live." It shows that he did not know how to tell them.

If I had taken out a life policy on this one the premiums would have bankrupted me ages ago. p. 304 Brooklyn praise is half slander. p. 370 ...my sister...was an interested and zealous invalid during sixty-five years, tried all the new diseases as fast as they came out, and always enjoyed the newest one more than any that went before; my brother had accumulated forty-two brands of Christianity before he was called away. p. 393 Whenever the human race assembles to a number exceeding four, it cannot stand free speech. p. 442 I am always reading immoral books on the sly, and then selfishly trying to prevent other people from having the same wicked good time. p. 475 Disputed[ edit ] I take my only exercise acting as pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercised regularly. Source Undetermined in Everyone's Mark Twain (1972) compiled by Caroline Thomas Harnsberger, p. 161 I don't give a damn for a man who can only spell a word one way. Unsourced in POP!: Create the Perfect Pitch, Title, and Tagline for Anything (2006) by Sam Horn.

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. Unsourced in The Philosophy of Mark Twain: The Wit and Wisdom of a Literary Genius (2014) by David Graham The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why. This appears on the opening placard of the film The Equalizer , attributing it to Twain, but there is no evidence that Twain wrote it. A precursor is found in Taylor Hartman's self-help book The Character Code (first published 1991), where it is not attributed to Twain: "The three most significant days in your life are: 1. The day you were born. 2. The day you find out why you were born. 3. The day you discover how to contribute the gift you were born to give" ( Google Books link ) The lack of money is the root of all evil. This appears in Twain's posthumous The Refuge of the Derelicts (1905), but it had already been published by other writers.

The earliest citation found in Google Books is a 1872 article by Richard Bowker : "Our Crime Against Crimes" , in The Herald of Health, vol. 19 no. 2, New York: Wood & Holbrook, February 1872. The saying is placed within quotation marks, perhaps indicating that it was already well-known. A precursor is found in an article from 1859 : It is very well to repeat, parrot-like, the old axiom that “the love of gold is the root of all evil;” but it is very certain that in truth—the lack of gold is the great incentive to crime. If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. No known source in Twain's works. Misattributed[ edit ] He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain, A Biography (1912) All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. But it's the best book we've had.

All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since. Ernest Hemingway in The Green Hills of Africa Chapter 1. From his earliest childhood young Clemens had been of an adventurous disposition. Before he was thirteen he had been extracted three times from the Mississippi and six times from Bear Creek in a substantially drowned condition, but his mother, with the high confidence in his future that never deserted her, merely remarked: "People who are born to be hanged are safe in the water." Samuel E. Moffett, "Mark Twain: a biographical sketch", in Autobiography of Mark Twain Vol. 3 (2015), p. 656

Question: Which writer, bom in 1865, observed that 'the female is more deadly than the male'?
Answer: RUDYARD KIPLING