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Mark Twain Quotes

Mark Twain Quotes


"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."

"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow."

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.

A lie can travel half-way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles but most of them never happened.

And what can be more obscene than our own imaginations?

Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity- these are strictly confined to man; he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them.
- The Lowest Animal essay

The thug is aware that loudness convinces sixty persons where reasoning convinces but one.
- "Is Shakespeare Dead?" essay

That is the way we are made: we don't reason, where we feel; we just feel.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

It is better to give than receive- especially advice.
- Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain, Alex Ayres

It's noble to be good. It's nobler to teach others to be good, and less trouble.
- Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain, Alex Ayres

There are three things which I consider excellent advice. First, don't smoke to access. Second, don't drink to excess. Third, don't marry to excess.
- last public address, St. Timothy's School for Girls, Catonsville, MY 6/9/1909

Mark Twain's answer to a would-be writer: "Young Author"- Yes, Agassiz does recommend authors to eat fish, because the phosphorus in it makes brain. So far you are correct. But I cannot help you to a decision about the amount you need to eat- at least not with certainty. If the specimen composition you send is about your fair usual averge, I suggest that perhaps a couple of whales would be all you would want for the present. Not the largest kind, but simply good middling-sized whales.
- "Answers to Correspondents", Sketches New and Old

You ought never to "sass" old people- unless they "sass" you first.
- Advice for Good Little Girls

It is wrong to put a sheepskin under your shirt when you know that you are going to get a licking. It is better to retire swiftly to a secret place and weep over your bad conduct until the storm blows over.
- Advice for Good Little Boys

You should never do anything wicked and lay it on your brother, when it is just as convenient to lay it on some other boy.
- Advice for Good Little Boys

Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.
- Advice to Young People speech, 4/15/1882

It is better to read the weather forecast before we pray for rain.
- Notebook; More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927

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.
- The Lowest Animal essay, 1897

We despise all reverences and all the objects of reverence which are outside the pale of our own list of sacred things. And yet, with strange inconsistency, we are shocked when other people despise and defile the things which are holy to us.
- Following the Equator

Suppose you were an idiot. Suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. - Suppose you were an idiot. Suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. - Mark Twain

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