Mark Twain Humorous Quotations

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.

There are many humorous things in the world, among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages

The humorist who invented trial by jury played a colossal practical joke upon the world, but since we have the system we ought to try and respect it. A thing which is not thoroughly easy to do, when we reflect that by command of the law a criminal juror must be an intellectual vacuum, attached to a melting heart and perfectly macaronian bowels of compassion.

...there isn't often anything in Wagner opera that one would call by such a violent name as acting.

I have attended operas, whenever I could not help it, for fourteen years now; I am sure I know of no agony comparable to the listening to an unfamiliar opera.

I have never heard enough classical music to be able to enjoy it; & the simple truth is, I detest it. Not mildly, but will all my heart. To me an opera is the very climax & cap-stone of the absurd, the fantastic the unjustifiable. I hate the very name of opera - partly because of the nights of suffering I have endured in its presence, & partly because I want to love it and can't.

It is no harm to be an ass, if one is content to bray and not kick.

... all the modern inconveniences ...

... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often picturesque liar.

But soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, But get thee to a nunnery - go!

They spell it da Vinci and pronounce it da Vinchy. Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.

There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind-the humorous.

I have never examined the subject of humor until now. I am surprised to find how much ground it covers. I have got its divisions and frontiers down on a piece of paper. I find it defined as a production of the brain, as the power of the brain to produce something humorous, and the capacity of percieving humor.

Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.

Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages.

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world and it's efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read-

I have witnessed and greatly enjoyed the first act of everything which Wagner created, but the effect on me has always been so powerful that one act was quite sufficient; whenever I have witnessed two acts I have gone away physically exhausted; and whenever I have ventured an entire opera the result has been the next thing to suicide.

There ought to be a room in every house to swear in. It's dangerous to have to repress an emotion like that.

April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four..

In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.

Always obey your parents - when they are present.

The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling;the comic and the witty story upon the matter.

The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it.

I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious -- unless he purposely shut the eyes of his mind & keep them shut by force.

The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness--your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture....He takes upon himself to be the week-day preacher.

Humor must be one of the chief attributes of God. Plants and animals that are distinctly humorous in form and characteristics are God's jokes.