Mark Twain
I am dead to adverbs; they cannot excite me. To misplace an adverb is a thing which I am able to do with frozen indifference; it can never give me a pang. There are subtleties which I cannot master at all - they confuse me, they mean absolutely nothing to me - and this adverb plague is one of them.Collection: Mean
It is so unsatisfactory to read a noble passage and have no one you love at hand to share the happiness with you. And it is unsatisfactory to read to one's self anyhow - for the uttered voice so heightens the expression.Collection: Self
I bring you this stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored from pirate raids in Kiao-Chow, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Phillipines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and a towel, but hide the looking-glass.Collection: Glasses
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.Collection: Humorous
You have noticed that the human being is a curiosity. In times past he has had (and worn out and flung away) hundreds and hundreds of religions; today he has hundreds and hundreds of religions, and launches not fewer than three new ones every year. I could enlarge on that number and still be within the facts.Collection: Past
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR per G.G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCECollection: Order
Humor is like a frog; if you dissect it, it dies.Collection: Frogs
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.Collection: Humorous
I used to think my father was an idiot, until I turned twenty-one... Then I thought he was a genus.Collection: Father
Hotels are the only proper places for lecturers. When I am ill-natured I so enjoy the freedom of a hotel where I can ring up a domestic and give him a quarter and then break furniture over him.Collection: Giving
The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.Collection: Friendship
Happiness ain't a thing in itself - it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant.Collection: Happiness
Whatever thing men call great, look for it in Joan of Arc, and there you will find it.Collection: Men
I cherish the dreams of yesterday and dare not dwell on the err's of my past whose fate has been long decided, and effect I can not change. For the dreams of yesterday are the challenges of today, and the hope for tomorrow.Collection: Dream
Deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie - I found that out.Collection: Spiritual
If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time.Collection: Religious
Whenever he was out of luck and a little down-hearted, he would fall to mourning over the loss of a wonderful cat he used to own (for where women and children are not, men of kindly impulses take up with pets, for they must love something)Collection: Children
When an honest writer discovers an imposition it is his simple duty to strip it bare and hurl it down from its place of honor, no matter who suffers by it; any other course would render him unworthy of the public confidence.Collection: Writing
You aim for the palace and get drowned in the sewer.Collection: Palaces
Courage is not the lack of fear. It is acting in spite of it.Collection: Inspirational
Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.Collection: Atheist
God created war so that Americans would learn geography.Collection: Inspirational
Some people get an education without going to college. The rest get it after they get out.Collection: College
Great things can happen when you don't care who gets the credit.Collection: Worthwhile Things
Prediction is difficult- particularly when it involves the future.Collection: Vision
They did not know it was impossible so they did itCollection: Attitude
I cannot help but notice that there is no problem between us that cannot be solved by your departure.Collection: Atheist
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.Collection: Inspirational
There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the pressCollection: Law
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 man.Collection: Funny
The truth hurts, but silence kills.Collection: Hurt
Those who do not read have no advantage over those who cannot read.Collection: Interesting
Congress: America's only true criminal class.Collection: Class
Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.Collection: Inspirational
Good judgement is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement.Collection: Inspirational
Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.Collection: Funny
There is nothing to be learned from the second kick of a mule.Collection: Mules
Don't dream your life, but live your dreamCollection: Dream
The world doesn't owe you anything. It was here first.Collection: Inspirational
The house was as empty as a beer closet in premises where painters have been at work.Collection: Humorous
Yes - en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns myself, en I's wuth eight hund'd dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn' want no mo'.Collection: Eight
One is apt to overestimate beauty when it is rareCollection: Beauty
Steal a chicken if you get a chance, Huck, because if you don't want it, someone else does and a good deed ain't never forgotten.Collection: Doe
Wheresoever she was, there was Eden.Collection: Eden
A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razorstrap. A thing book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.Collection: Book
My land, the power of training! Of influence! Of education! It can bring a body up to believe anything.Collection: Believe
Chastity - you can carry it too far.Collection: Chastity
We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking. And out of it we get an aggregation which we consider a boon. Its name is public opinion. It is held in reverence. Some think it the voice of God.Collection: Mistake
Preachers are always pleasant company when they are off duty.Collection: Duty