Mark Twain, Собрание сочинений в восьми томах Quotes

Comparison is the death of joy.

The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible.

Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

Never have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn't it be?--it is the same the angels breathe.

A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo and doesn't.

Education is what you must acquire without any interference from your schooling.

If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.

Great things can happen when you don't care who gets the credit.

Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.

April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambition.

Temper is what gets most of us into trouble. Pride is what keeps us there.

Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction.

Make your vocation your vacation. That is the secret to success.

Never miss an opportunity to shut up.

I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.

To create man was a quaint and original idea, but to add the sheep was tautology.

I simply can´t resist a cat, particularly a purring one. They are the cleanest, cunningest, and most intelligent things I know, outside of the girl you love, of course.

To lodge all power in one party and keep it there is to insure bad government and the sure and gradual deterioration of the public morals.

Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense.

Eating and sleeping are the only activities that should be allowed to interrupt a man's enjoyment of his cigar.

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

You can go to heaven if you want. I'd rather stay in Bermuda.

Imagine, if you will, that I am an idiot. Then, imagine that I am also a Congressman. But, alas, I repeat myself.

If you want to change the future, you must change what you're doing in the present.

All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty ornery lot. It's the way they're raised.

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

Few things are more irritating than when someone who is wrong is also very effective in making his point.

It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.

Don't let schooling interfere with your education.

One learns peoples through the heart, not the eyes or the intellect.

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

Don't wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

The truth hurts, but silence kills.

A half-truth is the most cowardly of lies.

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

She is not refined. She is not unrefined. She keeps a parrot

Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.

The very "marks" on the bottom of a piece of rare crockery are able to throw me into a gibbering ecstasy.