Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
Mark Twain Quotations
We found 272 matching quotations.
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
When I was fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have him around. When I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.
Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.
Of the delights of this world man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven.
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know.
Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
I've come loaded with statistics, for I've noticed that a man can't prove anything without statistics.
Familiarity breeds contempt - and children.
Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessaries.
A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principle one was that they escaped teething.
The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education.
There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
A man is accepted into church for what he believes--and turned out for what he knows.
Get your facts first and then you can distort them as much as you wish.
We all have thoughts that would shame the devil.
Principles have no real force except when one is well fed.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds upon the heel that crushes it.
"When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.
The rule is perfect in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them.
Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.
Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.
It is noble to teach oneself, it is still nobler to teach others.
The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.
A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
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.
I must have a prodigious quantity of mind it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up.
The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.
This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.
Quitting smoking is easy, I've done it hundreds of times.
Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.
It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you: the one to slander you, and the other to bring the news to you.
If you take a dog which is starving and feed him and make him prosperous, that dog will not bite you. This is the primary difference between a dog and a man.
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
[Mankind] is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy handful is right, sometimes wrong, but no matter, the crowd follows it.
The best coffee in Europe is Vienna coffee, compared to which all other coffee is fluid poverty.
Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear, and the blind can read.
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre but they are more deadly in the long run.
I can live two months on a good compliment.
Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.
One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.
Few sinners are saved after the fiirst twenty minutes of a sermon.
I did it partly because it was worth it, but mostly because I shall never have to do it again.
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of congress but I repeat myself.
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.
There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable, and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.
Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.
The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession, what there is of it.
I did not attend his funeral, but I wrote a nice letter saying I approved it.
He would come in and say he changed his mind -- which was a gilded figure of speech, because he didn't have any.
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
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.
Good breeding consists of concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell you see, I have friends in both places.
George Washington as a boy was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth - he could not even lie.
The billiard table is better than the doctor.
In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.
When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
I have spent most of my time worrying about thigs that have never happened.
Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.
A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence then success is sure.
Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be led by the nose.
There is nothing so annoying as to have two people talking when you're busy interrupting.
Providence protects children and idiots. I know because I have tested it.
I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.
October is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. Others are July, January, April, September, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.
Golf is a good walk, ruined.
It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.
A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
Some people get an eduction without going to college the rest get it after they get out.
We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles.
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to.
In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.
Go and surprise the whole country by doing something right.
The idea that no gentleman ever swears is all wrong; he can swear and still be a gentleman if he does it in a nice and benevolent and affectionate way.
The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"--a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you the one to slander you, and the other to get the news to you.
Those that respect the law and love sausage should watch neither being made.
Virtue has never been as respectable as money.
It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
There ought to be a room in every house to swear in.
"Familiarity breeds contempt - and children.
Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
Somewhere between the Angels and the French lies the rest of humanity.
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
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.
Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.
I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts.
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.
Everything has its limit--iron ore cannot be educated into gold. - 1906
Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
I never let schooling interfere with my education.
An enemy can partly ruin a man, but it takes a good-natured injudicious friend to complete the thing and make it perfect.
I never write Metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get the same money for cop.
To cease smoking is the easiset thing I ever did. I ought to know, I've done it a thousand times.
I admire the serene assurance of those who have religious faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.
Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
It could probably be show by facts and figures that there is no distinctively native American criminal class except Congress.
A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he needs.
Be good and you will be lonesome.
If we had less statemanship we could get along with fewer battleships.
The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are right.
When you cannot get a compliment any other way pay yourself one.
The secret source of humour itself is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humour in heaven.
It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
The holy passion of Friendship is so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
Why shoudn't truth be stranger than fiction Fiction, after all, has to stick to the possibilities.
Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.
If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be - a Christian.
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be--a christian.
If a person offend you and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures. Simply watch your chance and hit him with a brick.
The trouble isn't that there are too many fools, but that the lightning isn't distributed right.
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.
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.
[He was] a solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.
By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.
Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Drag your thoughts away from your troubles.. by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.
Man will do many things to get himself loved he will do all things to get himself envied.
Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.
To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler--and less trouble.
How little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have earned it.
When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.
Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.
Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.
It is easier to stay out than get out.
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.
Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
Sane and intelligent human beings are like all other human beings, and carefully and cautiously and diligently conceal their private real opinions from the world and give out fictitious ones in their stead for general consumption.
I am prepared to meet anyone, but whether anyone is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.
How come we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect.
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.
Our opinions do not really blossom into fruition until we have expressed them to someone else.
Great people are those who make others feel that they, too, can become great.
Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its one sure defense.
When one has tasted watermelon he knows what the angels eat.
Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
I cannot keep from talking, even at the risk of being instructive.
Of the delights of this world, man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven.
Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.
Sacred cows make the best hamburgers.
What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight, what counts is the size of the fight in the dog.
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
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.
Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
In Marseilles they make half the toilet soap we consume in America, but the Marseillaise only have a vague theoretical idea of its use, which they have obtained from books of travel.
The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
Are you so unobservant that you do not yet realize that sanity and hapiness are an impossible combination?
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please
Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned. - Notebook, 1898
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.
"One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of.
It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.
It is noble to teach oneself, but still nobler to teach others--and less trouble. - speech, 1906
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.
There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.
Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
It has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain when awake.
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 on a hot stove lid again--and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
A patriot is mocked, scorned and hated; yet when his cause succeeds, all men will join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence -- and then success is sure.
It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.
Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than on all other days of the year put together. This proves, by the numbers left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so.
Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
Time cools, time clarifies no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.
Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
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.
Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge.
I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the things which were sacred to other people.
We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Adam, the first great benefactor of the human race: he brought death into the world.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere.
I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it.
Eloquence is the essential thing in a speech, not information.
Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.
Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
At the beginning of a great national change, the patriot is a scarce man: scorned, ridiculed and forgotten. When his cause succeeds, however, all men will join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.
I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.
Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of his atlantic with his verb in his mouth.
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.
Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
I am an old man and have a great many troubles, But most of them never happened.
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
[Humanity] has unquestionably one really effective weapon?laughter. Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution?these can lift at a colossal humbug?push 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.
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.
Never tell the truth to those unworthy of it....
The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.
The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.
There are times when one would like to end the whole human race, and finish the farce.
Those who say truth is stranger than fiction have wasted their time on poorly written fiction.
Cold If the thermometer had been an inch longer we'd all have frozen to death
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough.
Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.
I never could tell a lie that anybody would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.
A classic is a book which people praise and don't read.
There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.
There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race and finish the farce.
It is the difference of opinion that makes horse races.
So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked.
The report of my death was an exaggeration.
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
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.
The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible.
Religion consists of a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain.
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
I was born modest. Not all over, but in spots.
I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time.
Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience of 4000 critics.
In our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.
A man with a new idea is a crank -- until the idea succeeds.
If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill always came together, who would escape hanging?
When in doubt, tell the truth.
I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.
Fleas can be taught nearly anything a congressman can.
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
I have never examined the subject of humor until now. I am surprised to find how much ground it covers. I have got its divisions and frontiers down on a piece of paper. I find it defined as a production of the brain, as the power of the brain to produce something humorous, and the capacity of percieving humor.
Carlyle said, "A lie cannot live"; it shows he did not know how to tell them.
Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerve give to wisdom.