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Mark Twain

Mark Twain Quotes

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Famous Mark Twain Quotes

“The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book- a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day.”

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Book:The Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated Edition): Novels, Short Stories, Memoir, Travel Books, Letters, Biography, Articles & Speeches: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi, Yankee in King Arthur's Court…
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“Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion--several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven....The higher animals have no religion. And we are told that they are going to be left out in the Hereafter. I wonder why? It seems questionable taste.”

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Author:Mark Twain
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“I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: "Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.”

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Book:Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations
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“There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It isn't because the book is not there and worth being written -- it is only because the right form of the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and if you fail to find that form the story will not tell itself.”

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Book:Mark Twain's Satires and Burlesques
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“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.”

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Book:Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn: The Original Text Edition
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“Everybody lies...every day, every hour, awake, asleep, in his dreams, in his joy, in his mourning. If he keeps his tongue still his hands, his feet, his eyes, his attitude will convey deception.”

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Book:The Complete Works of Mark Twain: All 13 Novels, Short Stories, Poetry and Essays
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“Solomon, who was one of the Deity's favorites, had a copulation cabinet composed of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. To save his life he could not have kept two of these young creatures satisfactorily refreshed, even if he had fifteen experts to help him. Necessarily almost the entire thousand had to go hungry for years and years on a stretch. Conceive of a man hardhearted enough to look daily upon all that suffering and not be moved to mitigate it.”

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Book:Letters from the Earth: Easyread Edition
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“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. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)
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“But it is a blessed provision of nature that at times like these, as soon as a man's mercury has got down to a certain point there comes a revulsion, and he rallies. Hope springs up, and cheerfulness along with it, and then he is in good shape to do something for himself, if anything can be done.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)
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“It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions. Heaven is by favor; if it were by merit your dog would go in and you would stay out. Of all the creatures ever made he (man) is the most detestable. Of the entire brood, he is the only one...that possesses malice. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.”

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Author:Mark Twain
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“It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way; then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble. If they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as it would keep peace in the family; and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I didn't tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way.”

PeopleIfsWayMindKindLongSaidUseWantedTroubleKingsLowsBest WayLiarsTake MeFraudQuarrelsObjectionsDukesHumbugHuckleberry
Book:10 Books in 1
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“Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if the heart was young, the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step. The locust-trees were in bloom, and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyond the village and above, it was green with vegetation, and it lay just far enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.”

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Book:The Complete Works of Mark Twain: All 13 Novels, Short Stories, Poetry and Essays
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“If you tell the truth you do not need a good memory!”

IfsNeedsTruthLyingMemoriesHonestyIntegrityBeing HonestTelling The TruthLiarsTruthfulLiedMake You ThinkGood MemoriesChakraTruth And LiesBeing TruthfulTrustworthinessHonest TruthNever LieTruth And HonestyHonesty IntegrityTruth HonestyHonesty And IntegrityTruth Be ToldMy TruthNo MemoryHonest And IntegrityLies TruthTelling LiesBeing LiedBeirutTrust And RespectLeadership IntegrityProfound TruthSaying The TruthWhite LieNot HonestHidden TruthLies And LiarsTrust HonestyNot TrustingFinding Out The TruthTrust And HonestyHiding The TruthIntellectual HonestyTruth And RealityDishonesty And LyingHonesty InspirationalGood LiesYou LiedGood LiarHonest RelationshipTruth And Knowledge
Book:Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: by Mark Twain (Illustrated and Unabridged)
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“If God is what people say there can be no one in the universe so unhappy as He; for He sees unceasingly myriads of His creatures suffering unspeakable miseries--and besides this foresees how they are going to suffer during the remainder of their lives. One might as well say, "As unhappy as God."”

PeopleIfsWellsGodMightSufferingUniverseCreaturesMiseryUnhappyUnspeakable
Book:Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations
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“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.”

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Book:Mark Twain in Eruption (Abridged, Annotated)
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“Leaving out the gamblers, the burglars, and the plumbers, perhaps we do put our trust in God after a fashion. But, after all, it is an overstatement. If the cholera or black plague should come to these shores, perhaps the bulk of the nation would pray to be delivered from it, but the rest would put their trust in The Health Board.”

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Book:Mark Twain's Speeches
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“If husbands could realize what large returns of profit may be gotten out of a wife by a small word of praise paid over the counter when the market is just right, they would bring matters around the way they wish them much oftener than they usually do. Arguments are unsafe with wives, because they examine them; but they do not examine compliments. One can pass upon a wife a compliment that is three-fourths base”

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Book:Mark Twain's Satires and Burlesques
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