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Mark Twain

Mark Twain Quotes

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Famous Mark Twain Quotes

“If the bubble reputation can be obtained only at the cannon's mouth, I am willing to go there for it, provided the cannon is empty. If it is loaded my immortal and inflexible purpose is to get over the fence and go home. My invariable practice in war has been to bring out of every fight two-thirds more men than when I went in. This seems to me Napoleonic in its grandeur.”

IfsMenHas BeensTwoWarHomeSeemsPurposeFightingPracticeWillingMouthsEmptyThirdsReputationImmortalBubblesGet OverFenceGrandeurLoadedCannonsNapoleonic
Book:Tales, Speeches, Essays, and Sketches
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“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers.”

PeopleIfsWorldWayHumansArtLiteratureNamesLostStarsNumbersRacePowerHeardPlanetsOughtPercentWeaknessImportanceMedicineJewListsFinanceDustHuman RaceContributionProportionStatisticsJudaismIsraeliProminentPuffMilky WaySmallnessArt MusicHands Tied
Book:Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations
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“My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.”

IfsYearsPersonsSeemsLanguageHoursStudyOughtDown AndTongueSatisfiedAwfulThirtyLatterManifestGiftedThirty YearsSpellingGerman Language
Book:A Tramp Abroad
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“By reading keep in a state of excited igorance, like a blind man in a house afire; flounder around, immensely but unintelligently interested; don't know how I got in and can't find the way out, but I'm having a booming time all to myself.Don't know what a Schelgesetzentwurf is, but I keep as excited over it and as worried about it as if it were my own child. I simply live on the Sch.; it is my daily bread. I wouldn't have the question settled for anything in the world.”

IfsKnowsMenWorldWayChildrenStatesReadingHouseLanguageMy OwnKnow HowBlindExcitedBreadWorriedOver ItBlind ManDaily Bread
Author:Mark Twain
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“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.”

IfsHeartGovernmentRememberDiesNationsModernDeserveLoyaltyRationalLive ByMedievalObsoleteTrue Patriotism
Book:Life as I find it [by] Mark Twain [pseud.] Essays, sketches, tales, and other material, the majority of which is now published in book form for the first time: edited, with an introd. and notes
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“The moral of it is this: If you are of any account, stay at home and make your way by faithful diligence; but if you are 'no account,' go away from home, and then you will have to work, whether you want to or not. Thus you become a blessing to your friends by ceasing to be a nuisance to them-if the people you go among suffer by the operation.”

PeopleIfsWayWantHomeSufferingMoralBlessingAccountsFaithfulOperationsGoing AwayDiligenceStay At HomeNuisanceAway From Home
Book:Roughing It
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“It is agreed, in this country, that if a man can arrange his religion so that it perfectly satisfies his conscience, it is not incumbent on him to care whether the arrangement is satisfactory to anyone else or not.”

IfsMenCountryCareConscienceArrangementsIncumbents
Book:Mark Twain on Common Sense: Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America's Most-Revered Humorist
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“If you invent two or three people and turn them loose in your manuscript, something is bound to happen to them -- you can't help it; and then it will take you the rest of the book to get them out of the natural consequences of that occurrence, and so first thing you know, there's your book all finished up and never cost you an idea.”

PeopleIfsKnowsFirstsTwoBookIdeasHelpingHappensTurnsThreeNaturalCostConsequenceBoundsFinishedManuscriptsNatural Consequences
Book:Mark Twain's Satires and Burlesques
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“If Christians should vote their duty to God at the polls, they would carry every election, and do it with ease. They would elect every clean candidate in the United States, and defeat every soiled one. Their prodigious power would be quickly realized and recognized, and afterward there would be no unclean candidates upon any ticket, and graft would cease.”

IfsShouldStatesWould BeChristianUnitedUnited StatesDutyVoteElectionCleanDefeatCeaseEaseCandidatesVotingTicketsPollsProdigiousDuty To God
Book:Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches & Essays: 1891-1910
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“For instance, take this sample: he has imagined a heaven, and has left entirely out of it the supremest of all his delights, the one ecstasy that stands first and foremost in the heart of every individual of his race - and of ours - sexual intercourse!It is as if a lost and perishing person in a roasting desert should be told by a rescuer he might choose and have all longed-for things but one, and he should elect to leave out water!”

IfsShouldFirstsHeartPersonsMightIndividualLostLeftHeavenWaterRaceDelightInstanceDesertEcstasyIntercourseSamplePerishingRoasting
Author:Mark Twain
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“If you will notice, there is seldom a telegram in a paper which fails to show up one or more members & beneficiaries of our Civilization as promenading with his shirt-tail up & the rest of his regalia in the wash.”

IfsShowsFailingCivilizationMembersPaperShirtsTailsBeneficiariesTelegrams
Book:Mark Twain-Howells Letters: The Correspondence of Samuel L. Clemens and William D. Howells, 1872-1910
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“The rain ...falls upon the just and the unjust alike; a thing which would not happen if I were superintending the rain's affairs. No, I would rain softly and sweetly on the just, but if I caught a sample of the unjust outdoors, I would drown him.”

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Book:Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 3: The Complete and Authoritative Edition
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“In our day we don't allow a hundred and thirty years to elapse between glimpses of a marvel. If somebody should discover a creek in the county next to the one that the North Pole is in, Europe and America would start fifteen costly expeditions thither; one to explore the creek, and the other fourteen to hunt for each other.”

IfsShouldYearsAmericaNextHundredDiscoveryEuropeThirtyFifteenGlimpseHuntsCountyThirty YearsFourteenExpeditionsCreeksNorth PoleEurope And America
Book:Life On The Mississippi: Mark Twain's Collections
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“That is an editor. He is trying to think of a word. He props his feet on a chair, which is the editor's way; then he can think better. I do not care much for this one; his ears are not alike; still, editor suggests the sound of Edward, and he will do. I could make him better if I had a model, but I made this one from memory. But is no particular matter; they all look alike, anyway. They are conceited and troublesome, and don't pay enough.”

IfsThinkingWayTryingLooksMadeStillsMatterEnoughCareSoundMemoriesPayFeetParticularModelsEarsChairsEditorsPropsTroublesomeConceited
Book:Mark Twain's Essays: Top Essays
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“If we could imagine such a man, that is a man who could invent the fly and send him out on his mission and furnish him with his orders: Depart into the uttermost corners of the earth and, diligently do your appointed work. Persecute the sick child, settle upon its eyes, its face, its hands, and gnaw and pester and sting, worry and fret and madden the worn and tried mother who watches by the child and humbly prays for mercy and relief with the pathetic faith of the deceived and the unteachable.”

IfsMenChildrenHandsEyeEarthFacesMotherReligionOrderWatchesWorryImaginePrayingMercySickCornersMissionsSettlingReliefWornDeceivedPatheticPray For MeMaddenSick Children
Author:Mark Twain
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