Quotes from Mark Twain

They know, too, that while in history-building a fact is better than a presumption, it doesn't take a presumption long to bloom into a fact when THEY have the handling of it.

Wenn dein einziges Werkzeug ein Hammer ist, wirst du jedes Problem als Nagel betrachten.

Ain't you my chile? En does you know anything dat a mother won't do for her chile? Day ain't nothin' a white mother won't do for her chile. Who made 'em so? De Lord done it. En who made de niggers? De Lord made 'em. In de inside, mothers is all de same. De good lord he made 'em so.

Of course we have been to the monster Church of St. Peter

He says, naïvely, outspokenly, and without suggestion of embarrassment: I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. You see, it is only another way of saying, I the Lord thy God am a small God; a small God, and fretful about small things.

The minister gave out his text and droned along monotonously through an argument that was so prosy that many a head by and by began to nod – and yet it was an argument that dealt in limitless fire and brimstone and thinned the predestined elect down to a company so small as to be hardly worth the saving.

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. —Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

the quality of certain scraps of verse which take hold of us and stay in our memories, we do not understand why, at first: all the words being the right words, none of them is conspicuous, and so they all seem inconspicuous, therefore we wonder what it is about them that makes their message take hold.

Among other common lies, we have the silent lie—the deception which one conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth. Many obstinate truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if they speak no lie, they lie not at all.

We had a strong desire to make a trip up the Yazoo and the Sunflower—an interesting region at any time, but additionally interesting at this time, because up there the great inundation was still to be seen in force—but we were nearly sure to have to wait a day or more for a New Orleans boat on our return; so we were obliged to give up the project.

He got home pretty late that night, and when he climbed cautiously in at the window, he uncovered an ambuscade, in the person of his aunt; and when she saw the state his clothes were in her resolution to turn his Saturday holiday into captivity at hard labor became adamantine in its firmness. CHAPTER

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.

If a stranger called and interrupted you, you said with your hearty tongue, I'm glad to see you, and said with your heartier soul, I wish you were with the cannibals and it was dinner-time. When

When I am come to mine own again, I will always honour little children, remembering how that these trusted me and believed in me in my time of trouble; whilst they that were older, and thought themselves wiser, mocked at me and held me for a liar.

The 'Memphis Avalanche' reports that the Professor's course met with pretty general approval in the community; knowing that the law was powerless, in the actual condition of public sentiment, to protect him, he protected himself.

In all ages of the world this eminently plausible fiction has lured the obtuse infant to financial ruin and disaster.

Nothing helps scenery like ham and eggs. Ham and eggs, and after these a pipe - an old, rank, delicious pipe - ham and eggs and scenery, a down grade, a flying coach, a fragrant pipe and and a contented heart - these make happiness. It is what all the ages have struggled for.

They was strong words but they was said and I let them stay said.

Después de todos estos años, veo que estaba equivocado con Eva al principio; es mejor vivir fuera del Jardín con ella que dentro de él sin ella.

A Christian mother's first duty is to soil her child's mind, and she does not neglect it. Her lad grows up to be a missionary, and goes to the innocent savage and to the civilized Japanese, and soils their minds. Whereupon they adopt immodesty, they conceal their bodies, they stop bathing naked together.

Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do most any thing and I believe him.

I have no special regard for Satan; but I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side.

A new-comer of any age or either sex was an impressive curiosity in the poor little shabby village of St. Petersburg.

That kind of so-called housekeeping where they have six Bibles and no cork-screw.