Mark Twain Men Quotations

The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man's.

We need not worry so much about what man descends from; it's what he descends to that shames the human race.

It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.

Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.

Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.

Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to.

What would men be without women? Scarce, sir, mighty scarce.

Make your mark in New York and you are a made man.

I knew I should not find in any philosophy a single thought which had not passed through my own head, nor a single thought which had not passed through the heads of millions and millions of men before I was born

No man has a wholly undiseased mind; in one way or another all men are mad

A man's first duty is to his own conscience and honor; the party and country come second to that, and never first.

Conscience, man's moral medicine chest.

When some men discharge an obligation, you can hear the report for miles around.

They all laid their heads together like as many lawyers when they are gettin' ready to prove that a man's heirs ain't got any right to his property.

Kindness is a language herd by deaf men and felt by blind men.

The only very marked difference between the average civilized man and the average savage is that the one is gilded and the other is painted.

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.

Congressman is the trivialist distinction for a full grown man.

Every man feels that his experience is unlike that of anybody else and therefore he should write it down-- he finds also that everybody else has thought and felt on some points precisely as he has done, and therefore he should write it down.

The cigar-box which the European calls a 'lift' needs but to be compared with our elevators to be appreciated. The lift stops to reflect between floors. That is all right in a hearse, but not in elevators. The American elevator acts like a man's patent purge-it works.

A man who keeps company with glaciers comes to feel tolerably insignificant by and by.

The true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking, or in the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to time the movement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred up and active; the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear in upon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm and solace to eye and soul and sense; but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk.

Next you'd see a raft sliding by, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it chopping. . . you'd see the ax flash and come down-you don't hear nothing; you see the ax go up again, and by the time it's above the man's head then you hear the k'chunk!-it had took all that time to come over the water.

Humor is man's greatest blessing.

The fear of lightning is one of the most distressing infirmities a human being can be afflicted with. It is mostly confined to women, but now and then you find it in a little dog, and sometimes a man.

I have damaged my intellect trying to imagine why a man should want to invent a repeating clock, and how another man could be found to lust after it and buy it. The man who can guess these riddles is far on the way to guess why the human race was invented - which is another riddle which tires me.

As a thinker and planner the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized!

Ethical man: A Christian holding four aces.

Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship God, and over these ideals they dispute-but they all worship money.

By his father he is English, by his mother he is Americanto my mind the blend which makes the perfect man.

From his cradle to his grave a man never does a single thing which has any FIRST AND FOREMOST object but one -- to secure peace of mind, spiritual comfort, for HIMSELF.

Man is the only creature who has a nasty mind.

I've come loaded with statistics, for I've noticed that a man can't prove anything without statistics. No man can.

I cannot see the short, white curls Upon the forehead of an Ox, But what I see them dripping with That poor thing's blood, and hear the ax; When I see calves and lambs, I see Them led to death; I see no bird Or rabbit cross the open field But what a sudden shot is heard; A shout that tells me men aim true, For death or wound, doth chill me through. W.H. Davies I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me.

Nature makes the locust with an appetite for crops; man would have made him with an appetite for sand

A man who carries a cat by the tail is getting experience that will always be helpful. He isn't likely to grow dim or doubtful. Chances are, he isn't likely to carry the cat that way again, either. But if he wants to, I say let him!

Difference between savage and civilized man: one is painted, the other gilded.

A group of men in evening clothes looks like a flock of crows, and is just about as inspiring.

If there is one thing that will make a man peculiarly and insufferable self-conceited, it is to have his stomach behave itself, the first day at sea, when nearly all his comrades are seasick.

Only when a republic's life is in danger should a man uphold his government when it is wrong. There is no other time.

The lie, as a virtue, a principle, is eternal; the lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend is immortal

There's some human instinct which makes a man treasure what he is not to make any use of, because everybody does not possess it.

If a spectacle is going to be particularly imposing I prefer to see it through somebody else's eyes, because that man will always exaggerate. Then I can exaggerate his exaggeration, and my account of the thing will be the most impressive.

Sum all the gifts that man is endowed with, and we give our greatest share of admiration to his energy. And today, if I were a heathen, I would rear a statue to Energy and fall down and worship it!

A man may plan as much as he wants to, but nothing of consequence is likely to come of it until the magician circumstance steps in and takes the matter off his hands.

To create man was a quaint and original idea, but to add the sheep was tautology.

The sole impulse which dictates and compels a man's every act: the imperious necessity of securing his own approval, in every emergency and at all costs.... It is our only spur, our whip, our goad, our impelling power; we have no other.

My mind changes often ... People who have no mind can easily be steadfast and firm, but when a man is loaded down to the guards with it, as I am, every heavy sea of foreboding or inclination, maybe of indolence, shifts the cargo.

In truth I care little about any party's politics—the man behind it is the important thing.

What a man wants with religion in these breadless times, surpasses my comprehension.

Men are easily dealt with--but when you get the women started, you are in for it, you know.

When a humorist ventures upon the grave concerns of life he must do his job better than another man or he works harm to his cause.

Not a single right is indestructible: a new might can at any time abolish it, hence, man possesses not a single permanent right. God is Might (and He is shifty, malicious, and uncertain).

Pilgrim's Progress , about a man that left his family, it didn't say why. I read considerable in it now and then. The statements was interesting, but tough.

Gold in its native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and only lowborn metals excite the admiration of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter. However, like the rest of the world, I still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying men of mica.

A man with a hump-backed uncle mustn't make fun of another man's cross-eyed aunt

Two things seemed pretty apparent to me. One was that in order to be a pilot a man had to learn more than any one man ought to learn; and the other was that he must learn it all over again in a different way every 24 hours.

An enemy can partly ruin a man, but it takes a good-natured injudicious friend to complete the thing and make it perfect.

The worst thing you can do to a man is to tell him he can have what he wants.

No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what a fearful thing it is.

A gentleman is a man who can play the banjo, but doesn't.

How unfortunate and how narrowing a thing it is for a man to have wealth who makes a god of it instead of a servant

What is the chief end of man?-to get rich. In what way?-dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must. Who is God, the one and only true? Money is God. Gold and Greenbacks and Stock-father, son, and ghosts of same, three persons in one; These are the true and only God, mighty and supreme.

I have seen an entire family lifted out of poverty and into affluence by the simple boon of a broken leg. I have had people come to me on crutches, with tears in their eyes, to bless this beneficient institution. In all my experiences of life, I have seen nothing so seraphic as the look that comes into a freshly mutilated man's face when he feels in his vest pocket with his remaining hand and finds his accident ticket all right.

Loyalty is a word which has worked vast harm; for it has been made to trick men into being "loyal" to a thousand iniquities, whereas the true loyalty should have been to themselves - in which case there would have ensured a rebellion, and the throwing off of that deceptive yoke.

...Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is a sort of low grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm. Yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the 'noblest work of God.'

Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity - these are strictly confined to man; he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them. They hide nothing. They are not ashamed.

The nation is divided, half patriots and half traitors, and no man can tell which from which.

A conspiracy is nothing but a secret agreement of a number of men for the pursuance of policies which they dare not admit in public

Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people's countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for the universal brotherhood of man - with his mouth.

Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.

I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's.

When I was 17, my father was so stupid, I didn't want to be seen with him in public. When I was 24, I was amazed at how much the old man had learned in just 7 years.

Books are the liberated spirits of men.

The less a man knows the bigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands.

A little starvation can really do more for the average sick man than can the best medicines and the best doctors.

Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.

Strange is the man who practices his religion.

Man is the only slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. He has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another. In our day, he is always some man's slave for wages, and does that man's work; and this slave has other slaves under him for minor wages, and they do his work. The higher animals are the only ones who exclusively do their own work and provide their own living.

I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me.

Most men die at 27, we just bury them at 72.

Every man is a moon and has a side which he turns toward nobody: you have to slip around behind it if you want to see it.

Of the delights of this world, man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven.

You should never trust a man who has only one way to spell a word.

What a man misses mostly in heaven is company.

Men and women -- even man and wife are foreigners. Each has reserves that the other cannot enter into, nor understand. These have the effect of frontiers.

Fortune knocks at every man's door once in a life, but in a good many cases the man is in a neighboring saloon and does not hear her.

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.

Give an Irishman lager for a month and he's a dead man. An Irishman's stomach is lined with copper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes the copper and is the saving of him.

It is a worthy thing to fight for one's freedom; it is another sight finer to fight for another man's.

To be satisfied with what one has; that is wealth. As long as one sorely needs a certain additional amount, that man isn't rich.

Man is without doubt the most interesting fool there is. He concedes that God made the angels immune from pain and death, and that he could have been similarly kind to man, but denies that he was under any moral obligation to do so.

Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.

A policeman in plain clothes is a man; in his uniform he is ten. Clothes and title are the most potent thing, the most formidable influence, in the earth. They move the human race to willing and spontaneous respect for the judge, the general, the admiral, the bishop, the ambassador, the frivolous earl, the idiot duke, the sultan, the king, the emperor. No great title is efficient without clothes to support it.

The old man laughed loud and joyously, shook up the details of his anatomy from head to foot, and ended by saying that such a laugh was money in a man's pocket, because it cut down the doctor's bills like everything.

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