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Mark Twain Quotes - Page 76

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It is so unsatisfactory to read a noble passage and have no one you love at hand to share the happiness with you. And it is unsatisfactory to read to one's self anyhow - for the uttered voice so heightens the expression.

It is so unsatisfactory to read a noble passage and have no one you love at hand to share the happiness with you. And it is unsatisfactory to read to one's self anyhow - for the uttered voice so heightens the expression.

Mark Twain
Self, Expression, Hands
Mark Twain (1992). “Mark Twain's Letters, Volume 3: 1869”, p.4, Univ of California Press

Where a blood relation sobs, an intimate friend should choke up, a distant acquaintance should sigh, a stranger should merely fumble sympathetically with his handkerchief.

Mark Twain
Blood, Stranger, Intimate
Mark Twain (2004). “Mark Twain’s Helpful Hints for Good Living: A Handbook for the Damned Human Race”, p.27, Univ of California Press

The election makes me think of a story of a man who was dying. He had only two minutes to live, so he sent for a clergyman and asked him, "Where is the best place to go to?" He was undecided about it. So the minister told him that each place had its advantages--heaven for climate, and hell for society.

Mark Twain
Men, Thinking, Two
Mark Twain (2017). “MARK TWAIN Ultimate Collection: 370+ Titles in One Volume (Illustrated): The Adventures of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, The £1,000,000 Bank Note, A Horse’s Tale, Yankee in King Arthur's Court, The Innocents Abroad, Life on the Mississippi…”, p.8082, e-artnow

I am dead to adverbs; they cannot excite me. To misplace an adverb is a thing which I am able to do with frozen indifference; it can never give me a pang. There are subtleties which I cannot master at all - they confuse me, they mean absolutely nothing to me - and this adverb plague is one of them.

Mark Twain
Mean, Giving, Frozen

The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it.

Mark Twain
Humorous, Crafts, Facts
Mark Twain (2012). “Humorous Stories and Sketches”, p.70, Courier Corporation

You have noticed that the human being is a curiosity. In times past he has had (and worn out and flung away) hundreds and hundreds of religions; today he has hundreds and hundreds of religions, and launches not fewer than three new ones every year. I could enlarge on that number and still be within the facts.

Mark Twain
Past, Years, Numbers
Mark Twain (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)”, p.4122, Delphi Classics

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR per G.G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCE

Mark Twain
Order, Plot, Narrative
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "Notice" (1884)

Humor is like a frog; if you dissect it, it dies.

Mark Twain
Frogs, Dies, Ifs

I have never examined the subject of humor until now. I am surprised to find how much ground it covers. I have got its divisions and frontiers down on a piece of paper. I find it defined as a production of the brain, as the power of the brain to produce something humorous, and the capacity of percieving humor.

Mark Twain
Humorous, Brain, Division
Mark Twain (1984). “Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrims and other salutary platform opinions”, Harpercollins

I used to think my father was an idiot, until I turned twenty-one... Then I thought he was a genus.

Mark Twain
Father, Thinking, Twenties

Happiness ain't a thing in itself - it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant.

Mark Twain
Happiness, Contrast, Pleasant
Mark Twain (2003). “Tales of Wonder”, p.32, U of Nebraska Press

Whatever thing men call great, look for it in Joan of Arc, and there you will find it.

Mark Twain
Men, Looks, Arcs
Mark Twain (2016). “Joan of Arc”, p.192, Ignatius Press

Hotels are the only proper places for lecturers. When I am ill-natured I so enjoy the freedom of a hotel where I can ring up a domestic and give him a quarter and then break furniture over him.

Mark Twain
Giving, Furniture, Break
Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.185, Courier Corporation

I bring you this stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored from pirate raids in Kiao-Chow, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Phillipines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and a towel, but hide the looking-glass.

Mark Twain
Glasses, Hypocrisy, Giving
R. Kent Rasmussen, Mark Twain (2013). “Dear Mark Twain: Letters from His Readers”, p.178, Univ of California Press

The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.

Mark Twain
Friendship, Sweet, Money
Pudd'nhead Wilson ch. 8, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" (1894)

I cherish the dreams of yesterday and dare not dwell on the err's of my past whose fate has been long decided, and effect I can not change. For the dreams of yesterday are the challenges of today, and the hope for tomorrow.

Mark Twain
Dream, Fate, Past

Deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie - I found that out.

Mark Twain
Spiritual, Prayer, Lying
Mark Twain (2015). “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, p.246, Simon and Schuster

When an honest writer discovers an imposition it is his simple duty to strip it bare and hurl it down from its place of honor, no matter who suffers by it; any other course would render him unworthy of the public confidence.

Mark Twain
Writing, Simple, Honor
Mark Twain (2016). “A Tramp Abroad”, p.152, Xist Publishing

You aim for the palace and get drowned in the sewer.

Mark Twain
Palaces, Aim, Sewers
Mark Twain (2014). “The American Claimant”, p.14, Jazzybee Verlag

Those who say truth is stranger than fiction have wasted their time on poorly written fiction.

Mark Twain
Fiction, Stranger, Truth Is

...Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is a sort of low grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm. Yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the 'noblest work of God.'

Mark Twain
Angel, Sarcasm, Men
Mark Twain, Paul Baender (1973). “What Is Man? and Other Philosophical Writings”, p.405, Univ of California Press

Leaving out the gamblers, the burglars, and the plumbers, perhaps we do put our trust in God after a fashion. But, after all, it is an overstatement. If the cholera or black plague should come to these shores, perhaps the bulk of the nation would pray to be delivered from it, but the rest would put their trust in The Health Board.

Mark Twain
God, Fashion, Leaving
Mark Twain (2016). “Mark Twain's Speeches”, p.95, Xist Publishing

Our Congresses consist of Christians. In their private life they are true to every obligation of honor; yet in every session they violate them all, and do it without shame. Because honor to party is above honor to themselves.

Mark Twain
Christian, Religious, Party
Mark Twain (2015). “Christian Science”, p.343, Mark Twain

I persuaded him to throw the dirk away; and it was as easy as persuading a child to give up some bright fresh new way of killing itself.

Mark Twain
Children, Giving Up, Way
Mark Twain (2016). “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court”, p.247, Mark Twain

You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks - in a word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier.

Mark Twain
Dream, Silly, Should Have
Mark Twain (2014). “The Mysterious Stranger: and Other Stories”, p.180, Diderot Publishing

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