Quotes from Mark Twain

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

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between the lightening and the lightening bug.

I admit that I treed a rheumatic grandfather of mine in the winter of 1850. He was old and inexpert in climbing trees, but with the heartless brutality that is characteristic of me I ran him out of the front door in his night-shirt at the point of a shotgun, and caused him to bowl up a maple tree, where he remained all night, while I emptied shot into his legs. I did this because he snored. I will do it again if I ever have another grandfather.

Do right for your own sake, and be happy in knowing that your neighbor will certainly share in the benefits resulting.

My financial views are of the most decided character, but they are not likely, perhaps, to increase my popularity with the advocates of inflation. I do not insist upon the special supremacy of rag money or hard money. The great fundamental principle of my life is to take any kind I can get.

The reason why truth is so much stranger than fiction is that there is no requirement for it to be consistent.

And who has prayed for Satan? In eight hundred years, who has had the common decency to pray for the one sinner who needed it most?

Always—from all companies, high or low—she went forth richer in honor and esteem than when she came.

I once heard a grouty northern invalid say that a coconut tree might be poetical, possibly it was; but it looked like a feather-duster struck by lightning.

Written things are not for speech; their form is literary; they are stiff, inflexible, and will not lend themselves to happy and effective delivery with the tongue--where their purpose is to merely entertain, not instruct; they have to be limbered up, broken up, colloquialized and turned into common forms of premeditated talk--otherwise they will bore the house and not entertain it.

The Moral Sense teaches us what is right, and how to avoid it--when unpopular.

Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most.

I allowed silence to accumulate while I got my impressiveness together

there ain't no better way to put in time when you are lonesome; you can't stay so, you soon get over it.

THANKSGIVING DAY. Let us all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji.

Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good Book says.

I said, Don't do nothing of the kind; it's one of the most jackass ideas I ever struck;

I got some of their jabber out of a book. S'pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy—what would you think? I wouldn' think nuffn; I'd take en bust him over de head—dat

I`ve had a very difficult life. Fortunately, most of it didn`t happen.

We have to keep our God placated with prayers, and even then we are never sure of him--how much higher and finer is the Indian's God......Our illogical God is all-powerful in name, but impotent in fact; the Great Spirit is not all-powerful, but does the very best he can for his injun and does it free of charge.

Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his heart.

What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce. "Woman—An Opinion" (speech) Some

I am prepared to meet anyone, but whether anyone is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter

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