Mark Twain And Quotations

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

Maybe it's not as bad as it sounds (when asked to comment on the music of Richard Wagner)

Four years at West Point and plenty of books and schooling will learn a man a great deal, It won't learn him the river.

I am different from Washington. I have a higher, grander standard of principle. Washington could not lie. I can lie, but I won't.

When I am king, they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved

I have studied it often, but I never could discover the plot

I was young and foolish then; now I am old and foolish

I think a compliment ought to always precede a complaint, where one is possible, because it softens resentment and insures for the complaint a courteous and gentle reception.

That's what an army is -- a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.

That's what an army is - a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.

We can't reach old age by another man's road. My habits protect my life but they would assassinate you.

We have no permanent brains until we are forty. Then they begin to harden, presently they petrify, then business begins. Since forty I have been regular about going to bed and getting up -- and that is one of the main things.

Write without pay until somebody offers to pay you. If nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for.

To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.

(Twain on Cain): it was his misfortune to live in a dark age that knew not the beneficent Insanity Plea

The trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades

There is nothing so annoying as to have two people talking when you're busy interrupting.

A lie can run around the world six times while the truth is still trying to put on its pants.

The man who is a pessimist before forty-eight knows too much; if he is an optimist after it he knows too little

A classic is a book which people praise and don't read.

A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razor strap. A thin book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.

Great books are weighed and measured by their style and matter and not by the trimmings and shadings of their grammer

If He Tom Sawyer had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do and Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

The peoples furthest from civilization are the ones where equality between man and woman are furthest apart-and we consider this one of the signs of savagery.

The difference between fiction and nonfiction is that fiction must be absolutely believable.

There is nothing training can't cannot do. Nothing is above its reach.

Oh Death where is thy sting! It has none. But life has.

Canadian girls are so pretty it's a relief now and then to see a plain one.

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.

Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul.

Never argue with people who buy ink by the gallon....

I would rather have my ignorance than another man's knowledge, because I have so much of it.

In statesmanship get formalities right, never mind about the moralities.

Take your mind out every now and then and dance on it. It is getting all caked up.

To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so long life;

One frequently only finds out how really beautiful a women is, until after considerable acquaintance with her.

Forget and forgive. This is not difficult when properly understood.

My faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened.