Best 2245 quotes of Mark Twain on MyQuotes

The weakest of all weak things is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire.

The world is beautiful and dangerous, and joyful and sad, and ungrateful and giving, and full of so, so many things. The world is new and it is old. It is big and it is small. The world is fierce and it is kind, and we, every one of us, are in it.

They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than President of the United States forever.

This ain't no thirty-seven year job, this is a thirty-eight year job, Tom Sawyer.

This explains why, whenever a person says sie to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger.

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.

To all intents and purposes Roxy was as white as anybody, but the one sixteenth of her which was black outvoted the other fifteen parts and made her a Negro. She was a slave, and salable as such.

Today the same thing over. I've got it up the tree again.

Tom Sawyer said I was a numskull.

Tom Sawyer the Pirate looked around upon the envying juveniles about him and confessed in his heart that this was the proudest moment of his life.

Tom se dijo que, después de todo, el mundo no era tan malo como parecía. Había descubierto, sin darse cuenta, una gran ley que rige los actos humanos, a saber: que para que un hombre o un muchacho codicie algo, basta con hacer que le sea difícil alcanzarlo.

Tom's whole being applauded this idea. It was deep, and dark, and awful; the hour, the circumstances, the surroundings, were in keeping with it.

To proceed with the Biblical curiosities. Naturally you will think the threat to punish Adam and Eve for disobeying was of course not carried out, since they did not create themselves, nor their natures nor their impulses nor their weaknesses, and hence were not properly subject to anyone's commands and not responsible to anybody for their acts.It will surprise you to know that the threat was carried out. Adam and Eve were punished and that crime finds apologists unto this day.The sentence of death was executed.

Tout les jours you are coming some fresh game or other on me, mais vous ne pouvez pas play this savon dodge on me twice!

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Travel is fatal to narrowmindedness, prejudice and bigotry.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and today -- all without seeing him. It is a long time to be alone; still, it is better to be alone that unwelcome. I had to have company -- I was made for it, I think -- so I made friends with the animals.

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." [Mark Twain, a Biography]

Use what you stand for and what you oppose as a foundation to write great content that resonates with readers and creates a ripple effect.

Warm summer sun, shine brightly here, Warm Southern wind, blow softly here, Green sod above, lie light, lie light, Good night, dear heart; good night, good night.

We don not think, in the holy places; we think in bed, afterwards, when the glare, and the the noise, and the confusion are gone, and in fancy we revisit alone, the solemn monuments of the past, and summon the phantom pageants of an age that has passed away.

Well, everybody does it that way, Huck." "Tom, I am not everybody.

Well, that night we had our show; but there warn’t only about twelve people there – just enough to pay expenses. And they laughed all the time, and that made the duke mad; and everybody left, anyway, before the show was over, but one boy which was asleep. So the duke said these Arkansaw lunkheads couldn’t come up to Shakespeare; what they wanted was low comedy – and maybe something ruther worse than low comedy, he reckoned. He said he could size their style. So next morning he got some big sheets of wrapping paper and some black paint, and drawed off some handbills, and stuck them up all over the village. The bills said: AT THE COURT HOUSE! FOR 3 NIGHTS ONLY! The World-Renowned Tragedians DAVID GARRICK THE YOUNGER! AND EDMUND KEAN THE ELDER! Of the London and Continental Theatres, In their Thrilling Tragedy of THE KING’S CAMELEOPARD, OR THE ROYAL NONESUCH ! ! ! Admission 50 cents. Then at the bottom was the biggest line of all, which said: LADIES AND CHILDREN NOT ADMITTED. “There,” says he, “if that line don’t fetch them, I don’t know Arkansaw!

Well, there was a sort of bastard justice in his view of the case, and so I dropped the matter. When you can't cure a disaster by argument, what is the use to argue?

We met a great many other interesting people, among them Lewis Carroll, author of the immortal "Alice"--but he was only interesting to look at, for he was the silliest and shyest full-grown man I have ever met except "Uncle Remus.

Wenn du die Wahrheit sagst, brauchst du kein gutes Gedächtnis.

We wished to go to the Ambrosian Library, and we did that also. We saw a manuscript of Virgil, with annotations in the handwriting of Petrarch, the gentleman who loved another man's Laura, and lavished upon her all through life a love which was a clear waste of the raw material. It was sound sentiment, but bad judgment. It brought both parties fame, and created a fountain of commiseration for them in sentimental breasts that is running yet. But who says a word in behalf of poor Mr. Laura? (I do not know his other name.) Who glorifies him? Who bedews him with tears? Who writes poetry about him? Nobody. How do you suppose he liked the state of things that has given the world so much pleasure? How did he enjoy having another man following his wife every where and making her name a familiar word in every garlic-exterminating mouth in Italy with his sonnets to her pre-empted eyebrows? They got fame and sympathy--he got neither. This is a peculiarly felicitous instance of what is called poetical justice. It is all very fine; but it does not chime with my notions of right. It is too one-sided--too ungenerous.

What a hell of a heaven it will be when they get all these hypocrites assembled there!

What an ass you are!” Satan said. “Are you so unobservant as not to have found out that sanity and happiness are an impossible combination? No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what a fearful thing it is.

What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so.

What would the new teacher, representing France, teach us? Railroading? No. France knows nothing valuable about railroading. Steamshipping? No. France has no superiorities over us in that matter. Steamboating? No. French steamboating is still of Fulton's date--1809. Postal service? No. France is a back number there. Telegraphy? No, we taught her that ourselves. Journalism? No. Magazining? No, that is our own specialty. Government? No; Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Nobility, Democracy, Adultery the system is too variegated for our climate. Religion? No, not variegated enough for our climate. Morals? No, we cannot rob the poor to enrich ourselves.

When a prisoner of style escapes, it's called an evasion.

Whenever you are popular just pause and see the reflect

When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who have gone on to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.

When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always 20 years behind the times.

When we set about accounting for a Napoleon or a Shakespeare or a Raphael or a Wagner or an Edison or other extraordinary person, we understand that the measure of his talent will not explain the whole result, nor even the largest part of it; no, it is the atmosphere in which the talent was cradled that explains; it is the training it received while it grew, the nurture it got from reading, study, example, the encouragement it gathered from self-recognition and recognition from the outside at each stage of its development: when we know all these details, then we know why the man was ready when his opportunity came.

Wherever he found his speech growing too modern -- which was about every sentence or two -- he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as "exceeding sore," "and it came to pass," etc., and made things satisfactory again. "And it came to pass" was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet.

Who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it?

Work like you don't need the money. Dance like no one is watching. And love like you've never been hurt.

You can find in a text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it and the mirror of your imagination. (the other Mark).

You can find in a text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it and the mirror of your imagination. You may not see your ears, but they will be there.

You gwyne to have considerable trouble in yo' life, en considerable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyne to git well agin.

You may say what you want to, but in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in my opinion she was just full of sand.

You mean you're the late Charlemagne; you must be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least." "Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has brung these gray hairs and this premature balditude.