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Mark Twain

Mark Twain Quotes

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Famous Mark Twain Quotes

“Adam is fading out. It is on account of Darwin and that crowd. I can see that he is not going to last much longer. There's a plenty of signs. He is getting belittled to a germ—a little bit of a speck that you can't see without a microscope powerful enough to raise a gnat to the size of a church. ('The Refuge of the Derelicts' collected in Mark Twain and John Sutton Tuckey, The Devil's Race-Track: Mark Twain's Great Dark Writings (1980), 340-41. - 1980)”

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Author:Mark Twain
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“Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately. Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh--not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.”

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Book:Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings
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“It was pitiful for a person born in a wholesome free atmosphere to listen to their humble and hearty outpourings of loyalty toward their king and Church and nobility; as if they had any more occasion to love and honor king and Church and noble than a slave has to love and honor the lash, or a dog has to love and honor the stranger that kicks him! Why, dear me, ANY kind of royalty, howsoever modified, ANY kind of aristocracy, howsoever pruned, is rightly an insult; but if you are born and brought up under that sort of arrangement you probably never find it out for yourself, and don't believe it when somebody else tells you. It is enough to make a body ashamed of his race to think of the sort of froth that has always occupied its thrones without shadow of right or reason, and the seventh-rate people that have always figured as its aristocracies -- a company of monarchs and nobles who, as a rule, would have achieved only poverty and obscurity if left, like their betters, to their own exertions... The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world for one object, and one only: to grovel before king and Church and noble; to slave for them, sweat blood for them, starve that they might be fed, work that they might play, drink misery to the dregs that they might be happy, go naked that they might wear silks and jewels, pay taxes that they might be spared from paying them, be familiar all their lives with the degrading language and postures of adulation that they might walk in pride and think themselves the gods of this world. And for all this, the thanks they got were cuffs and contempt; and so poor-spirited were they that they took even this sort of attention as an honor.”

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Author:Mark Twain
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“Each of us knows it all, and knows he knows it all—the rest, to a man, are fools and eluded. One man knows there is a hell, the next one knows there isn’t; one man knows monarchy is best, the next one knows it isn’t; one man knows high tariff is right, the next man knows it isn’t; one man knows there are witches, the next one knows there aren’t; one sect knows its religion is the only true one, there are sixty-four thousand five hundred million sects that know it isn’t so.”

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Book:The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain: A Book of Quotations
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“Every man in the earth possesses some share of intellect, large or small; and be it large or be it small he takes pride in it. Also his heart swells at mention of the names of the majestic intellectual chiefs of his race, and he loves the tale of their splendid achievements. For he is of their blood, and in honoring themselves they have honored him. (...) And then he contrived a heaven that hasn't a rag of intellectuality in it anywhere!”

HumorFunnyReligionHeavenIntelligenceIntelect
Book:Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings
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“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

InspirationalWisdomMotivationalSuccessTimeReligionPoliticsSidesChangeBusinessPovertyCourageSuccessfulSocietyGreatnessInspirational LifeMajorityAtheistIndividualityLibertarianInsaneBeing YourselfFinding YourselfConformityBe YouBusiness SuccessPausesConformReflectingCritical ThinkingMy FutureNonconformityMotivational BusinessHumoristsJust Be YourselfMotivational SuccessInspirational SuccessConformistBest SuccessHappiness And SuccessFamous MotivationalJust Being YouAbout SuccessInspirations Being YourselfPausingMotivational ActionCool MotivationalNonconformistCourage To ChangeMajority RuleThinking Of YourselfInspirational CharacterKeep You MotivatedConformity And IndividualityMotivation And ChangeLife Best InspirationalReligion PoliticsTaking A BreakWar PropagandaDaily BusinessMajority VotePolitical WisdomMajority And MinoritySilent MajorityShort Motivational LifeKeep To YourselfPause ButtonConventional Life
Book:The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain
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“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”

InspirationalKindWisdomReligionLanguageInspiringKindnessNiceRelationshipSeeingPositiveGratitudeGoodnessBlindCharityAppreciationHearingThanksBe KindWarmthAutismBeing NiceThank YouBlindnessThankfulDeafBeing ThankfulEnglish LanguageBenevolenceExpress YourselfGoodwillLove And KindnessKindness And CompassionSaying Thank YouActs Of KindnessLoving KindnessExpressing GratitudeFundraisingHumannessThank You GratitudeGoodness And KindnessInspirational KindnessRandom Acts Of KindnessGenerosity And KindnessKindness GenerosityThankful For YouWords Of KindnessNicenessExpress AppreciationHuman KindnessGratitude For HelpCommon LanguagePeople With DisabilitiesActs Of CharityRandom KindnessThanks YouLanguages CommunicationCulture And LanguageSurround Yourself With Good PeopleKind ThoughtsImportant DaysRepayingSimple Acts Of KindnessThank You LoveThanking FriendsDeaf And DumbDeaf And BlindKindness And PatienceThankful For Family
Book:Bite-Size Twain: Wit and Wisdom from the Literary Legend
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“It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”

I CanInspirationDeathReligionReligiousAtheismDyingAtheistBotherSecularAgnosticSkepticalSkepticThere Is No GodAtheisticIf There Is A GodAnti ReligiousThere Being No GodChristian AtheistAnti ChristianAnti ReligionFunny ReligiousFunny AtheistAnti AtheistAnti God
Book:Mark Twain on Common Sense: Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America's Most-Revered Humorist
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“You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?”

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Author:Mark Twain
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“In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”

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Author:Mark Twain
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“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

InspirationalYearsBelieveDeathReligionSufferingDiesFearBornAtheismDyingDiedEntrepreneurAtheistBillionsLife And DeathSarcasticIronicDeath And DyingAgnosticPublishersFear Of DeathThere Is No GodFunny RelationshipInconvenienceHumoristsDo Not FearFinalityDying DeathThere Being No GodInspirational DeathBefore DeathFear Of DyingNot Afraid Of DeathBeautiful DeathDo Not Fear Death
Author:Mark Twain
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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.”

IfsMenTryingMadeSeemsReligionLeftHeavenReligiousAnimalWonderPathCuttingHonestBrotherHigherTasteNeighborTheologyThroatGlobesSmoothHereafterGraveyardLeft OutPhilosophy Of ReligionTrue ReligionQuestionableReligion GodReligious PhilosophyPhilosophy And ReligionMorality And ReligionFunny ReligiousReligion WarReligion And WarReligious HumorDamned Human Race
Author:Mark Twain
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“The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive ... but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born.”

YearsHas BeensUseChristianReligionCultureNationsBornChurchSinChristianityStepsTakenFiveAtheismHundredDiscoveryInnovationArchitectureAstronomyArtisticGreekCurseSpiteEnlightenedBigotryProgressiveSuperstitionsBiblicalScience And ReligionAvoidedEvery StepChildbirthGeologyScience ReligionChristian AtheistScience Vs ReligionChristian NationAnesthetics
Author:Mark Twain
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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.”

IfsMenBookInspirationReligionTakenTroubleHeardMiracleCuriosityRateAffairMessAwakeLakesCopiesPrintSaltPretentiousSleepyInsipidJoseph SmithChloroform
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)
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“There was no place in the land where the seeker could not find some small budding sign of pity for the slave. No place in all the land but one - the pulpit. It yielded last; it always does. It fought a strong and stubborn fight, and then did what it always does, joined the procession - at the tail end. Slavery fell. The slavery texts in the Bible remained; the practice changed; that was all.”

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Book:What Is Man? and Other Philosophical Writings
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“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. I would not interfere with any one's religion, either to strengthen it or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one's religion can affect his hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion may be. But it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life-hence it is a valuable possession to him.”

KnowsMenWayBelieveMayMatterAbleReligionEasyMy OwnTeachComfortNo Matter WhatPossessionValuableOne WayThis LifeFollySuspectsInterfereAnother ManHereafterValuable Possessions
Author:Mark Twain
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“I was educated, I was trained, I was a Presbyterian and I knew how these things are done. I knew that in Biblical times if a man committed a sin the extermination of the whole surrounding nation-cattle and all-was likely to happen. I knew that Providence was not particular about the rest, so that He got somebody connected with the one He was after.”

IfsMenDoneWholeHappensReligionNationsSinParticularCommittedConnectedEducatedProvidenceBiblicalCattlePresbyteriansExtermination
Book:Mark Twain in Eruption (Abridged, Annotated)
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“A religion that comes of thought, and study, and deliberate conviction, sticks best. The revivalized convert who is scared in the direction of heaven because he sees hell yawn suddenly behind him, not only regains confidence when his scare is over, but is ashamed of himself for being scared, and often becomes more hopelessly and malignantly wicked than he was before.”

ReligionFaithBeliefHeavenFearReligiousBehindsHellStudyConfidenceBecomingEntrepreneurSticksScaredConvictionWickedAshamedHopelessScarePublishersDeliberateLecturesHumoristsBeing Scared
Author:Mark Twain
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