Mark Twain quotes - page 14

I wish Europe would let Russia annihilate Turkey a little--not much, but enough to make it difficult to find the place again without a divining-rod or a diving-bell. (Mark Twain)
When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself. View quote
Mark Twain
.... it is not wise to keep the fire going under a slander unless you can get some large advantage out of keeping it alive. Few slanders can stand the wear of silence. View quote
Mark Twain
The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples - that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at. View quote
Mark Twain
There isn't anything so grotesque or so incredible that the average human being can't believe it. View quote
Mark Twain
Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is, I dunno. If the Eiffel Tower were now representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; and anybody would perceive that the skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno. View quote
Mark Twain
I am always reading immoral books on the sly, and then selfishly trying to prevent other people from having the same wicked good time. View quote
Mark Twain
There has never been a Protestant boy nor a Protestant girl whose mind the Bible has not soiled. View quote
Mark Twain
Customs do not concern themselves with right or wrong or reason. But they have to be obeyed; one reasons all around them until he is tired, but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden. View quote
Mark Twain
...when the human race is not grotesque it is because it is asleep and losing its opportunity. View quote
Mark Twain
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. (Mark Twain)
We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft. View quote
Mark Twain
As I slowly grow wise I briskly grow cautious. View quote
Mark Twain
It is a mystery that is hidden from me by reason that the emergency requiring the fathoming of it hath not in my life-days occurred, and so, not having no need to know this thing, I abide barren of the knowledge. View quote
Mark Twain
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. View quote
Mark Twain
The funniest things are the forbidden. View quote
Mark Twain
No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon. View quote
Mark Twain
Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get. View quote
Mark Twain
Is not this insanity plea becoming rather common? Is it not so common that the reader confidently expects to see it offered in every criminal case that comes before the courts? [...] Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against insanity. View quote
Mark Twain
When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man's moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides? View quote
Mark Twain
I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I'm not feeling so well myself. (Mark Twain)
The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. View quote
Mark Twain
I was a-trembling because Id got to decide forever betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied for a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself, 'All right, then Ill go to hell.' View quote
Mark Twain
But the truth is, that when a Library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me. View quote
Mark Twain
In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue, but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing. View quote
Mark Twain