Mark Twain, Собрание сочинений в восьми томах Quotes

For we were little Christian children and early learned the value of forbidden fruit.

Newport, Rhode Island, that breeding place-that stud farm, so to speak-of aristocracy; aristocracy of the American type.

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.

How often we recall with regret that Napoleon once shot at a magazine editor and missed him and killed a publisher. But we remember with charity that his intentions were good.

Men are like bank accounts. The more money, the more interest they generate.

Distance lends enchantment to the view.

We have an insanity plea that would have saved Cain.

One frequently only finds out how really beautiful a beautiful woman is after considerable acquaintance with her.

A country without a patent office and good patent laws is just a crab, and can't travel any way but sideways and backways.

The highest perfection of politeness is only a beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of ungraceful and gilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying.

Hunger is the handmaid of genius

For a male person bric-a-brac hunting is about as robust a business as making doll-clothes.

We are chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change place with an easy and blesses facility, and we are soon wonted to the change and happy in it.

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

Adam was not alone in the Garden of Eden, however, and does not deserve all the credit; much is due to Eve, the first woman, and Satan, the first consultant.

A photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever.

The modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism is loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.

Additional problems are the offspring of poor solutions.

A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.

In religion and politics, people's belief's and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.

The secret of success is making your vocation your vacation.

Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to.

Golf is a good walk spoiled.

I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's.

Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass.

Balloon: Thing to take meteroric observations and commit suicide with.

They did not know it was impossible so they did it

Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over.

A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.

When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Kentucky, because everything there happens 20 years after it happens anywhere else.

New Orleans food is as delicious as the less criminal forms of sin.

Laughter is the greatest weapon we have and we, as humans, use it the least.

When in doubt tell the truth. It will confound your enemies and astound your friends.

Behind every successful man, there is a woman - And behind every unsuccessful man, there are two.

The less a man knows the bigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands.

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.

Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. Fanatics will never learn that, though it be written in letters of gold across the sky. It is the prohibition that makes anything precious.

Honesty: The best of all the lost arts.

Of all the animals, man is the only one that lies.

Congress: America's only true criminal class.

Damn these human beings; if I had invented them I would go hide my head in a bag.

The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.

If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.

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.

Progressive improvement beats delayed perfection.

Always tell the truth. That way you don't have to remember what you said.

What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey.