Mark Twain, Собрание сочинений в восьми томах Quotes

Fewer things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man but it would deteriorate the cat.

Love is a madness if thwarted it develops fast.

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.

Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

I was born modest not all over but in spots.

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

He liked to like people therefore people liked him.

Ethical man - a Christian holding four aces.

Cold! If the thermometer had been an inch longer we'd all have frozen to death.

I asked Tom if countries always apologized when they had done wrong and he said: "Yes: the little one does."

In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.

Love seems the swiftest but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.

There are those who would misteach us that to stick in a rut is consistency - and a virtue and that to climb out of the rut is inconsistency - and a vice.

Courage is resistance to fear mastery of fear not absence of fear.

Courage is resistance to fear mastery of fear-not absence of fear.

We are chameleons and our partialities and prejudices change place with an easy and blessed facility.

There are those who would misteach us that to stick in a rut is consistency and a virtue and that to climb out of the rut is inconsistency and a vice.

You can tell German wine from vinegar ... by the label.

Go to bed early get up early-this is wise.

The human race is a race of cowards and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.

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

The fragrance of the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

To be satisfied with what one has that is wealth. As long as one sorely needs a certain additional amount that man isn't rich.

Grief can take care of itself but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

Good friends good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong. Nearly everybody will side with you when you are in the right.

There ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.

From his cradle to the grave a man never does a single thing which has any first and foremost object save one-to secure peace of mind spiritual comfort for himself.

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

Have a place for everything and keep the things somewheres else. That is not advice it is merely custom.

To get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

Happiness is a Swedish sunset it is there for all but most of us look the other way and lose it.

We may not pay Satan reverence for that would be indiscreet but we can at least respect his talents.

The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up.

Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have the man looked honest enough.

It is better to deserve honours and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

Lord save us all from ... a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.

It takes your enemy and your friend working together to hurt you to the heart the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.

Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man - the biography of the man himself cannot be written.

Name the greatest of all inventors: Accident.

It isn't so astonishing the number of things that I can remember as the number of things I can remember that aren't so.

Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.

In his private heart no man much respects himself.

Make money and the whole world will conspire to call you a gentleman.

In statesmanship get formalities right never mind about the moralities.

It is a wise child that knows its own father and an unusual one that unreservedly approves of him.

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

Richard Wagner a musician who wrote music which is better than it sounds.