The Complete Works of Mark Twain


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Mark Twain Quotes

"A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain."
"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
"A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval."
"Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper."
"Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more."
"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."
"Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough."
"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."
"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."
"Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain."
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first."
"Don't part with your illusions. when they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live."
"Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't."
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please."
"Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time."
"Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it."
"Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place."
"I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position."
"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it."
"I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way."
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
"I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting."
"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know."
"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 a man."
"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything."
"In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language."
"In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination."
"In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards."
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress."
"It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them."
"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
"It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare."
"It is easier to stay out than get out."
"It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech."
"It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it."
"Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it."












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