Quotes from Mark Twain

There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.

I smoke in moderation. Only one cigar at a time.

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog.

Literature is well enough, as a time-passer, and for the improvement and general elevation and purification of mankind, but it has no practical value.

More than one cigar at a time is excessive smoking.

Principles aren't of much account anyway, except at election time. After that you hang them up to let them season.

The first time a student realizes that a little learning is a dangerous thing is when he brings home a poor report card.

There is no other life; life itself is only a vision and a dream for nothing exists but space and you. If there was an all-powerful God, he would have made all good, and no bad.

Recipe for a long life: Only smoke while awake. Only run when being chased.

All my life I have been honest-comparatively honest. I could never use money I had not made honestly-I could only lend it.

Experience of life (not of books) is the only capital usable in such a book as you have attempted; one can make no judicious use of this capital while it is new.

Life does not consist mainly - or even largely - of facts and happenings.

It is a pity we can't escape from life when we are young.

Most of the things I worried about in life never happened.

Life becomes fully understandable only the moment we realise that we are all mad.

I never did a thing in all my life, virtuous or otherwise that I didn't repent of within twenty-four hours.

When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.

After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; ... I should be sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass out of my life.

A marriage. . .will give a new gladness to the sunshine, a new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth, and a new mystery to life.

The first half of my life I went to school, the second half of my life I got an education.

No child should be permitted to grow up without exercise for imagination. It enriches life for him. It makes things wonderful and beautiful.

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

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - 'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

The educated Southerner has no use for an 'r', except at the beginning of a word.