Quotes by Mark Twain

There spoke the race! he said; always ready to claim what it hasnt got, and mistake its ounce of brass filings for a ton of gold-dust. You have a mongrel perception of humor, nothing more; a multitude of you possess that. This multitude see the comic side of a thousand low-grade and trivial things--broad incongruities, mainly; grotesqueries, absurdities, evokers of the horse-laugh. The ten thousand high-grade comicalities which exist in the world are sealed from their dull vision. Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them--and by laughing at them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon--laughter. Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution-- these can lift at a colossal humbug--push it a little--weaken it a little, century by century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. You are always fussing and fighting with your other weapons. Do you ever use that one? No; you leave it lying rusting. As a race, do you ever use it at all? No; you lack sense and the courage.

The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and the soul.

Today the same thing over. Ive got it up the tree again.

Darwin abolished special creations, contributed the Origin of Species and hitched all life together in one unbroken procession.

When majority is insane, sane must go to asylum.

Everybody granted that if Tom were white and free it would be unquestionably right to punish him--it would be no loss to anybody; but to shut up a valuable slave for life--that was quite another matter. As soon as the Governor understood the case, he pardoned Tom at once, and the creditors sold him down the river.

The thing for us to do is just to do our duty, and not worry about whether anybody sees us do it or not.

Thats just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he dont want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it aint no disgrace.

All right, then, Ill go to hell.

She kept up her compliments, and I kept up my determination to deserve them or die.

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 man.

I had to have company -- I was made for it, I think -- so I made friends with the animals. They are just charming, and they have the kindest disposition and the politest ways; they never look sour, they never let you feel that you are intruding, they smile at you and wag their tail, if theyve got one, and they are always ready for a romp or an excursion or anything you want to propose.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and today -- all without seeing him. It is a long time to be alone; still, it is better to be alone that unwelcome. I had to have company -- I was made for it, I think -- so I made friends with the animals.

If man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.

It was a dreadful thing to see. Humans beings can be awful cruel to one another.

I had been to school most all the time, and could spell, and read, and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I dont reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever. I dont take no stock in mathematics, anyway.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

But old fools is the biggest fools there is.

October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.