QUOTES

Mark Twain quotes

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities, truth isn't.

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.

Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

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.

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

Do not offer a compliment and ask a favor at the same time. A compliment that is charged for is not valuable.

There is a moral sense and there is an immoral sense. History shows that the moral sense enables us to see morality and how to avoid it, and that the immoral sense enables us to perceive immorality and how to enjoy it.

Only when a republic's life is in danger should a man uphold his government when it is in the wrong. There is no other time.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

The Country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing, it is the thing to watch over and care for and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous.

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big enough majority in any town?

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.

Habit is habit and not to be flung out the window by any man but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.

I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices.

It's noble to be good, and it's nobler to teach others to be good, and less trouble.

When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.

Prophecies which promise valuable things, desirable things, good things, worthy things, never come true. Prophecies of this kind are like wars fought in a good cause -- they are so rare that they don't count.

I never did a thing in all my life, virtuous or otherwise, that I didn't repent of in twenty-four hours.

There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it -- and stop there, lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. 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.

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

Sacred cows make the best hamburger.

Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.

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