Quotes from Mark Twain

We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter.

He started a sarcastic smile, but quenched it, according to the etiquette of his profession.

Familiarity breeds contempt — and children.

Every man has a secret ambition: To outsmart horses, fish and women.

Men are easily dealt with--but when you get the women started, you are in for it, you know.

The peoples furthest from civilization are the ones where equality between man and woman are furthest apart-and we consider this one of the signs of savagery.

I saw men whom thirty years had changed but slightly; but their wives had grown old. These were good women; it is very wearing to be good.

One frequently only finds out how really beautiful a women is, until after considerable acquaintance with her.

Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.

There ought to be a room in every house to swear in. It's dangerous to have to repress an emotion like that.

He couldn't get a ball to stay on the alley. When he had fired about fifteen balls and hadn't yet reached the cluster of pins, his annoyance began to show out through his clothes. He wouldn't let it show in his face; but after another fifteen balls he was not able to control his face; he didn't utter a word, but he exuded mute blasphemy from every pore.

Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.

There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land (and work) again after a cheerful, careless voyage.

I have found out there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.

Sufficient unto the day is one baby. As long as you are in your right mind don't you ever pray for twins. Twins amount to a permanent riot; and there ain't any real difference between triplets and a insurrection.

His vanity stands alone, sky-piercing, as sharp of outline as an Egyptian monolith. It is the only unpleasant feature in him that is not modified, softened, compensated by some converse characteristic.

I put in these parentheses to signify a complicated wink — you understand?

The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say.

As to the Adjective: When in doubt, strike it out.

None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try.

This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.

Ah, well, I am a great and sublime fool. But then I am God's fool, and all His work must be contemplated with respect.

25th Anniversary. — Love seems the swiftest but is the slowest of all growths. No man and woman really know what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.