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Mark Twain Quotes - Page 37

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The vast majority of the race whether savage or civilized, are secretly kind at heart and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don't dare to assert themselves.

The vast majority of the race whether savage or civilized, are secretly kind at heart and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don't dare to assert themselves.

Mark Twain
Pain, Heart, Race
Mark Twain (1992). “The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories”, p.110, Courier Corporation

In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.

Mark Twain
Spring, Weather, Different

To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement.

Mark Twain
Writing, Achievement, Squandering
Mark Twain (1990). “Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 2: 1867-1868”, p.182, Univ of California Press

There is in life only one moment and in eternity only one. It is so brief that it is represented by the fleeting of a luminous mote through the thin ray of sunlight - and it is visible but a fraction of a second. The moments that preceded it have been lived, are forgotten and are without value; the moments that have not been lived have no existence and will have no value except in the moment that each shall be lived. While you are asleep you are dead; and whether you stay dead an hour or a billion years the time to you is the same.

Mark Twain
Years, Rays, Fleeting
Mark Twain, Albert Bigelow Paine (1971). “Mark Twain's notebook”, Scholarly Pr

In God We Trust. I don't believe it would sound any better if it were true.

Mark Twain
Atheist, Believe, Religion
Mark Twain (2012). “The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain: A Book of Quotations”, p.27, Courier Corporation

I think we never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead--and not then until we have been dead years and years. People ought to start dead, and they would be honest so much earlier.

Mark Twain
Death, Honesty, Thinking
Mark Twain (2004). “The Portable Mark Twain”, p.14, Penguin

Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.

Mark Twain
Truth, Fiction, Stranger

Architects cannot teach nature anything.

Mark Twain
Architecture, Architect, Teach
Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.319, Courier Corporation

He wa'n't no common dog, he wa'n't no mongrel; he was a composite. A composite dog is a dog that is made up of all the valuable qualities that's in the dog breed-kind of a syndicate; and a mongrel is made up of all riffraff that's left over.

Mark Twain
Dog, Quality, Mutts
Mark Twain (2015). “Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 3: The Complete and Authoritative Edition”, p.169, Univ of California Press

Fortune knocks at every man's door once in a life, but in a good many cases the man is in a neighboring saloon and does not hear her.

Mark Twain
Life, Men, Gambling

We love old travelers: we love to hear them prate, drivel and lie; we love them for their asinine vanity, their ability to bore, their luxuriant fertility of imagination, their startling, brilliant, overwhelming mendacity.

Mark Twain
Travel, Lying, Vanity

In religion, India is the only millionaire... the One land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for all the shows of all the rest of the globe combined.

Mark Twain
Past, Men, Land

It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.

Mark Twain
Stars, Sky, Lovely
Mark Twain, Barry Moser (1985). “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, p.180, Univ of California Press

You may say organize, organize, organize; but there may be so much organization that it will interfere with the work to be done.

Mark Twain
Hard Work, Organization, Done
Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain’s Letters & Speeches (Annotated Edition)”, p.1034, Jazzybee Verlag

Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.

Mark Twain
Inspirational, Funny, New Year
Mark Twain, Paul Fatout (1997). “Mark Twain Speaks for Himself”, p.10, Purdue University Press

All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.

Mark Twain
Funny, Compassion, Government
Mark Twain (1960). “Mark Twain and the Government”

Doesn't make any difference who we are or what we are, there's always somebody to look down on.

Mark Twain
Animal, Differences, Humanity
Mark Twain (2003). “Tales of Wonder”, p.304, U of Nebraska Press

You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God's adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by.

Mark Twain
Book, Writing, Needs
Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.161, Courier Corporation

The difference between fiction and nonfiction is that fiction must be absolutely believable.

Mark Twain
Differences, Fiction, Believable

The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn't it be?--it is the same the angels breathe.

Mark Twain
Angel, Clouds, Flying High
Mark Twain (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)”, p.4707, Delphi Classics

Many public-school children seem to know only two dates—1492 and 4th of July; and as a rule they don't know what happened on either occasion.

Mark Twain
Summer, Education, Children
Mark Twain (2016). “The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain”, p.46, Chartwell

Learning softeneth the heart and breedeth gentleness and charity.

Mark Twain
Heart, Charity, Gentleness
Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.232, Courier Corporation

I do not like an injurious lie, except when it injures somebody else.

Mark Twain
Lying
Mark Twain (2000). “The Jumping Frog: And 18 Other Stories”, p.100, Book Tree

I hope all of us may eventually be together in everlasting peace and bliss -- except the inventor of the #‎ telephone .

Mark Twain
Together, May, Telephones

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.

Mark Twain
Regret, Editors, Charity
Mark Twain (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)”, p.7132, Delphi Classics

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