Mark Twain quotes - page 13

The history of our race, and each individual's experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal. (Mark Twain)
His head was an hour-glass; it could stow an idea, but it had to do it a grain at a time, not the whole idea at once. View quote
Mark Twain
But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of therest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before. View quote
Mark Twain
There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. View quote
Mark Twain
How empty is theory in the presence of fact! View quote
Mark Twain
I believe I have no prejudices whatsoever. All I need to know is that a man is a member of the human race. That's bad enough for me. View quote
Mark Twain
[Whose_property]Whose property is my body? Probably mine. I so regard it. If I experiment with it, who must be answerable? I, not the State. If I choose injudiciously, does the State die? Oh no. View quote
Mark Twain
I would like to live in Manchester, England. The transition between Manchester and death would be unnoticeable. View quote
Mark Twain
Nearly all black and brown skins are beautiful, but a beautiful white skin is rare. View quote
Mark Twain
All creatures kill-there seems to be no exception; but of the whole list, man is the only one that kills for fun; he is the only one that kills in malice, the only one that kills for revenge. View quote
Mark Twain
The trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades. (Mark Twain)
A gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. View quote
Mark Twain
None but the dead have free speech. View quote
Mark Twain
An injurious lie is an uncommendable thing; and so, also, and in the same degree, is an injurious truth-a fact that is recognized by the law of libel. View quote
Mark Twain
There are those who imagine that the unlucky accidents of life-life's "experiences"-are in some way useful to us. I wish I could find out how. I never know one of them to happen twice. They always change off and swap around and catch you on your inexperienced side. View quote
Mark Twain
A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle. View quote
Mark Twain
Compliments make me vain: & when I am vain, I am insolent & overbearing. It is a pity, too, because I love compliments. I love them even when they are not so. My child, I can live on a good compliment two weeks with nothing else to eat. View quote
Mark Twain
When grown-up persons indulge in practical jokes, the fact gauges them. They have lived narrow, obscure, and ignorant lives, and at full manhood they still retain and cherish a job lot of left-over standards and ideals that would have been discarded with their boyhood if they had then moved out into the world and a broader life. View quote
Mark Twain
Whenever the human race assembles to a number exceeding four, it cannot stand free speech. View quote
Mark Twain
He [George Washington Cable] has taught me to abhor and detest the Sabbath day and hunt up new and troublesome ways to dishonor it. View quote
Mark Twain
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. (Mark Twain)
... when you recollect something which belonged in an earlier chapter, do not go back, but jam it in where you are. Discursiveness does not hurt an autobiography in the least. View quote
Mark Twain
France has usually been governed by prostitutes. View quote
Mark Twain
Only laughter can blow [a colossal humbug] to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. View quote
Mark Twain
To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is correct. View quote
Mark Twain