Quotes of Mark Twain
(1835 - 1910) [T]
[T]
"There is no such thing as a new idea. It
is impossible. We just take a lot of old ideas and put them into
a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn, and they
create new and curious combinations. We keep turning making new
patterns, but they are the same old pieces of glass that
have been in use throughout all the years."
What is the difference between a
taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your
skin."
Kindness is a language which the deaf can
hear and the blind can see."
"I am different from [George] Washington;
I have a higher, grander standard of principle. Washington could
not lie. I can lie, but I won't."
"Don't go around saying the world owes you
a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first."
"If you pick up a starving dog and make
him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal
difference between a dog and a man."
"Keep away from people who try to belittle
your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great
make you feel that you, too, can become great."
"Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is
because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth
isn't."
One of Mark Twain's quote's pertains to a
burglar alarm he wrote about, but it can be used to refer to any
machine:
"I got so frustrated with the infernal contraption that I
traded it for a dog, and SHOT the dog."
"A house without a cat, and a well-fed,
well-petted, and properly revered cat, may be a perfect house,
perhaps, but how can it prove its title?"
Mark Twain, The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
"Suppose you were an idiot
and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat
myself."
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of
the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."
"Always do right. This will gratify some
people and astonish the rest."
"If you tell the truth, you do not have to remember
anything."
"I do not like work even when someone else does it."
"We ought never to do wrong
when people are looking."
"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."
"Why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit is."
"Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture
they do not understand, but the passages that bother
me are those I do understand."
"Worrying about something is like paying interest on a debt
you don't
even know if you owe."
"A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to
read."
"Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and
let the food fight it out inside."
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no
influence on society."
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my
education."
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by
smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."
The secret of success is making your vocation your vacation.
(Mark Twain)
"We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any
in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the
difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know
anything and can't read."
"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people
think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
"I am
an old man and have known a great many troubles but most of them
never happened."
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by
the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw
off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the
trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream."
"France
has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these
drawbacks
it is a fine country.
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority,
it's time to pause and reflect."
"It is curious that physical
courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare."
"An ethical man is a Christian holding four aces."
"I find that principles have no real force except when
one is well fed."
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of
getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small
manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.
Be careful to get out of an experience all the wisdom that is
in it -- not like the cat that sits down on a hot stove. She will never sit down
on a hot stove lid again -- and that is well; but also she will never sit down
on a cold one anymore.
"Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under
differing conditions."
"The man who does not read good books has no advantage
over the man who can't read them."
Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must
have somebody to divide it with."
"A classic is something that everyone wants to have read
and nobody wants to read."
"Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest
of us could not succeed."
"Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you
may still exist but you have ceased to live."
If you tell the truth you don't have to remember
anything.
When in doubt, tell the truth.
Mark Twain
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