Mark Twain (Writer)

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.

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.

— Mark Twain money

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.

— Mark Twain work

This poor little one-horse town.

— Mark Twain poor

All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the "elect" have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so "slow," so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. Ifcomposed this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason.

— Mark Twain inspiration

A crowded police docket is the surest of all signs that trade is brisk and money plenty.

— Mark Twain money

A baby is an inestimable blessing and bother.

— Mark Twain sin

The funniest things are the forbidden.

— Mark Twain fun

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.

— Mark Twain work

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

— Mark Twain self

Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.

— Mark Twain respect

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.

— Mark Twain light

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?

— Mark Twain truth

Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world — and never will.

— Mark Twain soul

He [George Washington Cable] has taught me to abhor and detest the Sabbath day and hunt up new and troublesome ways to dishonor it.

— Mark Twain honor

An experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar.

— Mark Twain experience

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.

— Mark Twain kindness

As I slowly grow wise I briskly grow cautious.

— Mark Twain wise

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.

— Mark Twain light

Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it.

— Mark Twain art

I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

— Mark Twain anger

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.

— Mark Twain truth

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.

— Mark Twain death

A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.

— Mark Twain time

[Citing a familiar "American joke":] In Boston they ask, How much does he know? In New York, How much is he worth? In Philadelphia, Who were his parents?

— Mark Twain parents

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.

— Mark Twain men

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.

— Mark Twain you

Rudyard Kipling, An Interview with Mark Twain, p. 180, From sea to sea: letters of travel, 1899, Doubleday & McClure Company.

— Mark Twain travel

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.

— Mark Twain men

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.

— Mark Twain love

He had only one vanity; he thought he could give advice better than any other person.

— Mark Twain advice

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.

— Mark Twain people

Definition of a classic — something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

— Mark Twain body

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.

— Mark Twain people

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.

— Mark Twain loss

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.

— Mark Twain men

...[H]eaven for climate, Hell for society.

— Mark Twain society

Honesty is the best policy — when there is money in it.

— Mark Twain money

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.

— Mark Twain money

Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.

— Mark Twain people

To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add the sheep was a tautology.

— Mark Twain man

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.

— Mark Twain pain

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]

— Mark Twain time

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.

— Mark Twain knowledge

The only reason why God created man is because he was disappointed with the monkey.

— Mark Twain man

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.

— Mark Twain power

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.

— Mark Twain reason

Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.

— Mark Twain men

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

— Mark Twain opinion

I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.

— Mark Twain time

is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.

— Mark Twain work

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.

— Mark Twain passion

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.

— Mark Twain men

The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.

— Mark Twain religion

You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is.

— Mark Twain man

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.

— Mark Twain thinking

The lack of money is the root of all evil.

— Mark Twain money

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

— Mark Twain people

Always acknowledge a fault frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you opportunity to commit more.

— Mark Twain knowledge

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 live

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.

— Mark Twain truth

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.

— Mark Twain courage

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?

— Mark Twain god

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

— Mark Twain truth

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered — either by themselves or by others. But for the Civil War,andandandwould 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.

— Mark Twain book

Adam, at Eve's grave: Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden.

— Mark Twain

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.

— Mark Twain real

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.

— Mark Twain time

They spell it "Vinci" and pronounce it "Vinchy". Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.

— Mark Twain

I used to worship the mighty genius of— 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.

— Mark Twain poetry

Enough, enough, enough! Say no more! Lump the whole thing! say that the Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo!

— Mark Twain design

Guides cannot master the subtleties of the American joke.

— Mark Twain america

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.

— Mark Twain wit

Virtue never has been as respectable as money.

— Mark Twain money

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.

— Mark Twain time

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

— Mark Twain people

, Vol. 11, No. 2, February 1871

— Mark Twain

The Eriekills 23 to 46; the other 845 railroads kill an average of one-third of a man each; and the rest of that million, amounting in the aggregate to that appalling figure of 987,631 corpses, die naturally in their ! You will excuse me from taking any more chances on those beds. The railroads are good enough for me.

— Mark Twain man

Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.

— Mark Twain ya

He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.

— Mark Twain action

Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and...Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

— Mark Twain hate

The minister gave out his text and droned along monotonously through an argument that was so prosy that many a head by and by began to nod — and yet it was an argument that dealt in limitless fire and brimstone and thinned the predestined elect down to a company so small as to be hardly worth the saving.

— Mark Twain men

There was no getting around the stubborn fact that taking sweetmeats was only "hooking," while taking bacon and hams and such valuables was plain simple stealing — and there was a command against that in the Bible. So they inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in the business, their piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing.

— Mark Twain war

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 world

She makes me get up just at the same time every morning; she makes me wash, they comb me all to thunder; she won't let me sleep in the woodshed; I got to wear them blamed clothes that just smothers me, Tom; they don't seem to let any air git through 'em, somehow; and they're so rotten nice that I can't set down, nor lay down, nor roll around anywher's; I hain't slid on a cellar-door for — well, it 'pears to be years; I got to go to church and sweat and sweat — I hate them ornery sermons! I can't ketch a fly in there, I can't chaw. I got to wear shoes all Sunday. The widder eats by a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell — everything's so awful reg'lar a body can't stand it.

— Mark Twain time

There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration — and regret. The weather is always doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always getting up new designs and trying them on people to see how they will go. But it gets through more business in spring than in any other season. In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of twenty-four hours.

— Mark Twain people

Probable nor'east to sou'west winds, varying to the soutard and westard and eastard and points between; high and low barometer, sweeping round from place to place; probable areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes with thunder and lightning.

— Mark Twain art

One of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it.

— Mark Twain right

If that I could but clothe me in raiment like to thine, and strip my feet, and revel in the mud once, just once, with none to rebuke me or forbid, meseemeth I could forego the crown!

— Mark Twain men

A few minutes later the little Prince of Wales was garlanded with Tom's fluttering odds and ends, and the little Prince of Pauperdom was tricked out in the gaudy plumage of royalty. The two went and stood side by side before a great mirror, and lo, a miracle: there did not seem to have been any change made!

— Mark Twain change

I pray thee of thy grace believe me, I did but speak the truth, most dread lord; for I am the meanest among thy subjects, being a pauper born, and 'tis by a sore mischance and accident I am here, albeit I was therein nothing blameful. I am but young to die, and thou canst save me with one little word. Oh speak it, sir!

— Mark Twain truth

"My father!" cried Tom, off his guard for the moment. "I trow he cannot speak his own so that any but the swine that kennel in the styes may tell his meaning; and as for learning of any sort soever—" He looked up and encountered a solemn warning in my Lord St. John's eyes. He stopped, blushed, then continued low and sadly: "Ah, my malady persecuteth me again, and my mind wandereth. I meant the King's grace no irreverence."

— Mark Twain war

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