Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) Quotes "I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know." "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."- When one has tasted watermelon he knows what the angels eat. We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore. All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure. "The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury." "Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. "In the real world, the right thing never happens in the right place and the right time. It is the job of journalists and historians to make it appear that it has." "History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme a lot." 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. A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. ... A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity. "... all the modern inconveniences ..." ... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and quite often picturesque liar. Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint. By trying, we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's, I mean.-- Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. "Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first." -- God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board. Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big enough majority in any town? -- "He is now rising from affluence to poverty." "I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up." 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 a man. In a museum in Havana, there are two skulls of Christopher Columbus, "one when he was a boy and one when he was a man." In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy. It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either. Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to. She is not refined. She is not unrefined. She keeps a parrot. Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. -- Mark Twain The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. -- Mark Twain The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner. -- Mark Twain The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful. Chances are, he isn't likely to carry the cat that way again, either. But if he wants to, I say let him! There are several good protections against temptation but the surest is cowardice. The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice. There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it. Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." "Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." Courtesy of the Flatbush Escapee "Always tell the truth; then you don't have to remember anything." Courtesy of the Flatbush Escapee "Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get." "Be good and you will be lonesome." "I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time." "Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please." "The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane." "Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with." "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." "Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits." "Put all your eggs in the one basket and- WATCH THAT BASKET." Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul. The best way to chear yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up. When you cannot get a compliment any other way, pay yourself one. 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 rather not.
	We ought never do wrong when people are looking. Get the facts first. You can distort them later.br> When in doubt, tell the truth. Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing. "The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up."

I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position. It is better to deserve honours and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them. Let us endeavour to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. Familiarity breeds contempt -- and children. When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear. It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read. Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either. Wagner's music is better than it sounds. 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. If there are no cigars in Heaven, I shall not go. The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up. "A good lie will have travled half way around the world while the truth is putting on her boots." Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising. Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all. We are always too busy for our children; we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them; but the most precious gift, our personal association, which means so much to them, we give grudgingly. 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. The miracle, or the power, that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application, and perseverance under the prompting of a brave, determined spirit. When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself. Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. It is not best that we should all think alike; it is differences of opinion that make horse races. Why is it that people rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the people involved. The man who does not read books has no advantage over the man that can not read them. 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. Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear. It is better to deserve honours and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them. It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race. Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person. The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot. Crank -- a man with a new idea until it succeeds. All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure. Truth is more of a stranger than fiction. In a museum in Havana, there are two skulls of Christopher Columbus, "one when he was a boy and one when he was a man." A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way "I'm glad I did it, partly because it was worth it, but mostly because I shall never have to do it again." "One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity there ain't nothing can beat teamwork." "Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs a step at a time." "The difference between the right word and a similar word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." "There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy bad principles and recreate good ones; it can lift men to angelship." "Virtue was never as respectable as money." "No God and no religion can survive ridicule. No political church, no nobility, no royalty or other fraud, can face ridicule in a fair field, and live." "Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. And it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catchphrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let man label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country- hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of." Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it. There isn't a parallel of latitude but thinks it would have been the equator if it had had its rights. Duties are not performed for duties' sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty- the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself. Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned. It is not the facts that are of chief importance, but the light thrown upon them, the meaning in which they are dressed, the conclusions which are drawn from them, and the judgements delivered upon them. We do not deal much in fact when we are contemplating ourselves.