Quotations by Mark Twain
- "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead."
- "Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be."
- "My books are water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) Everybody drinks water."
- "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."
- "Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat."
- "I admire the serene assurance of those who have religious faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces."
- "An uneasy conscience is a hair in the mouth."
- "All the talk used to be about doing people good, now it is about doing people."
- "At 50 a man can be an ass without being an optimist but not an optimist without being as ass."
- " Always acknowledge a fault frankly."
- "This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you opportunity to commit more."
- "All schools, all colleges, have two great functions; to confer, and to conceal, valuable knowledge."
- " The theological knowledge which they conceal cannot justly be regarded as less valuable than that which they reveal."
- "That is, when a man is buying a basket of strawberries it can profit him to know that the bottom half of it is rotten."
- "Better a broken promise than none at all."
- " Benefit of clergy: Half-rate on the railroad."
- "The burnt child shuns the fire. Until next day."
- "Balloon: Thing to take meteroric observations and commit suicide with."
- "By and by when each nation has 20,000 battleships and 5,000,000 soldiers we shall all be safe and the wisdom of statesmanship will stand confirmed."
- "Circumstances make man, not man circumstances."
- "Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessaries."
- "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society."
- "Do your duty today and repent tomorrow."
- "Do good when you can, and charge when you think they will stand it."
- "Difference between savage and civilized man: one is painted, the other gilded."
- "Do not put off till tomorrow what can be put off till day-after-tomorrow just as well."
- "Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish."
- "Etiquette requires us to admire the human race."
- "Everybody's private motto: It's better to be popular than right."
- "Every man is wholly honest to himself and to God, but not to any one else."
- "Geological time is not money."
- "Good wine needs no bush; a jug is the thing."
- " God's noblest work? Man. Who found it out? Man."
- "Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life."
- "Golden rule: Made of hard metal so it could stand severe wear, it not being known at that time that butter would answer."
- "Honesty was the best policy."
- "Honesty: The best of all the lost arts."
- "Heroine: Girl who is perfectly charming to live with, in a book."
- "Have a place for everything and keep the thing somewhere else."
- "This is not advice, it is custom."
- "Heroine: Girl in a book who is saved from drowning by a hero and marries him next week, but if it was to be over again ten years later it is likely she would rather have a life-belt and he would rather have her have it."
- "Hero: Person in a book who does things which he can't and girl marries him for it."
- "It is wiser to find out than to suppose."
- " In literature imitations do not imitate."
- "It is best to read the weather forecast before we pray for rain."
- "It is hard enough luck being a monarch, without being a target also."
- "It is a solemn thought: Dead, the noblest man's meat is inferior to pork."
- "If we had less statesmanship we could get along with fewer battleships."
- "It is not best to use our morals weekdays, it gets them out of repair for Sunday."
- "It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected."
- "Is a person's public and private opinion the same? It is thought there have been instances."
- "It is the foreign element that commits our crimes."
- "There is no native criminal class except Congress."
- "It is a wise child that knows its own father, and an unusual one that unreservedly approves of him."
- "It is not likely that any complete life has ever been lived which was not a failure in the secret judgment of the person that lived it."
- "It is sound statesmanship to add two battleships every time our neighbor adds one and two stories to our skyscrapers every time he piles a new one on top of hisn to threaten our light."
- " There is no limit to this soundness but the sky."
- "Let us save the to-morrows for work."
(Burlesque Autobiography/the Prince) by Mark Twain
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