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Mark Twain

Mark Twain Quotes

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Famous Mark Twain Quotes

“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. See what happens when you "know it all", at any stage of life? Farther down the track you may see clearly how certain personal opinions, held onto too tightly, could be fogging up the view, and providing incorrect insight. Prosperity is the best protector of principle.”

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Author:Mark Twain
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“I never could do anything with figures, never had any talent for mathematics, never accomplished anything in my efforts at that rugged study, and to-day the only mathematics I know is multiplication, and the minute I get away up in that, as soon as I reach nine times seven- [He lapsed into deep thought, trying to figure nine times seven. Mr. McKelway whispered the answer to him.] I've got it now. It's eighty-four. Well, I can get that far all right with a little hesitation. After that I am uncertain, and I can't manage a statistic.”

KnowsTryingWellsLittlesI CanScienceAnswersEffortStudyFourMinutesTalentFiguresMathematicsSevenNineManageAccomplishmentAccomplishedGet AwayStatisticsUncertainDeep ThoughtEightyHesitationRuggedMultiplication
Author:Mark Twain
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“We get our morals from books. I didn't get mine from books, but I know that morals do come from books- theoretically at least.”

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Book:The Complete Novels of Mark Twain (Illustrated): 12 American Classics & Author’s Biography: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, A Horse’s Tale, The Prince and the Pauper, The American Claimant, The Mysterious Stranger…
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“The Church worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry. Who discovered that there was no such thing as a witch - the priest, the parson? No, these never discover anything.”

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Author:Mark Twain
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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.”

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Author:Mark Twain
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“A man's house burns down. The smoking wreckage represents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and pleasant associations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he misses this, then that, then the other thing. And when he casts about for it he finds that it was in that house. Always it is an essential - here was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It was in that house. It is irrevocably lost...It will be years before the tale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know the magnitude of his disaster.”

KnowsMenLoveYearsFirstsKindUseHomeHouseLostWeekMissingGoes OnEssentialsDearCastsDisasterTalesPleasantSmokingGoodbyeAssociationReplacedRuinedSaying GoodbyeMagnitudeThrough The YearsWreckage
Book:Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review
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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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“In this age of inventive wonders all men have come to believe that in some genius' brain sleeps the solution of the grand problem of aerial navigation-and along with that belief is the hope that that genius will reveal his miracle before they die, and likewise a dread that he will poke off somewhere and die himself before he finds out that he has such a wonder lying dormant in his brain. We all know the air can be navigated-therefore, hurry up your sails and bladders-satisfy us-let us have peace.”

KnowsMenBelieveProblemAgeLyingDiesBeliefSleepBrainWonderAirGeniusSolutionsMiracleAviationDreadSailPredictionsDormantPokeNavigationBladder
Book:Tom Sawyer Abroad ; Tom Sawyer Detective
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“Suppose . . . burglars had made entry into this . . . [library]. Picture them seated here on this floor, pouring the light of their dark-lanterns over some books they found, and thus absorbing moral truths and getting moral uplift. The whole course of their lives would have been changed. As it was, they kept straight on in their immoral way and were sent to jail. For all I know, they may next be sent to Congress.”

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Author:Mark Twain
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“Heaven knows insanity was disreputable enough, long ago; but now that the lawyers have got to cutting every gallows rope and picking every prison lock with it, it is become a sneaking villainy that ought to hang and keep on hanging its sudden possessors until evil-doers should conclude that the safest plan was to never claim to have it until they came by it legitimately. The very calibre of the people the lawyers most frequently try to save by the insanity subterfuge ought to laugh the plea out of the courts, one would think.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsShouldTryingLongEnoughEvilHeavenLaughingCuttingPlansOughtClaimsCourtPrisonLawyerInsanityLong AgoLocksRopeDoersVillainyGallowsSubterfugeEvil Doers
Author:Mark Twain
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“...we all know that in all matters of mere opinion that [every] man is insane-just as insane as we are...we know exactly where to put our finger upon his insanity: it is where his opinion differs from ours....All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it. None but the Republicans. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.”

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Author:Mark Twain
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“I love to revel in philosophical matters-especially astronomy. I study astronomy more than any other foolishness there is. I am a perfect slave to it. I am at it all the time. I have got more smoked glass than clothes. I am as familiar with the stars as the comets are. I know all the facts and figures and have all the knowledge there is concerning them. I yelp astronomy like a sun-dog, and paw the constellations like Ursa Major.”

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Book:The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain
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“As to the human race. There are many pretty and winning things about the human race. It is perhaps the poorest of all the inventions of all the gods but it has never suspected it once. There is nothing prettier than its naive and complacent appreciation of itself. It comes out frankly and proclaims without bashfulness or any sign of a blush that it is the noblest work of God. It has had a billion opportunities to know better, but all signs fail with this ass. I could say harsh things about it but I cannot bring myself to do it-it is like hitting a child.”

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Book:The outrageous Mark Twain: some lesser-known but extraordinary works : with
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