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Mark Twain QuotesA lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. Be careful in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul. Better a broken promise than none at all. By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean. Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned. Everything has its limit – iron ore cannot be educated into gold. Familiarity breeds contempt – and children. Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with. He is now rising from affluence to poverty. He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages. Honesty is the best policy – when there is money in it. I have made a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time. I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any. Exercise is loathsome. And it cannot be any benefit when you are tired; and I was always tired. I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up. In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards. It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them. Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. Man – a creature made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired. Man is the only creature that blushes – or needs to. Man was made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired. Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied. Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising. Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins. My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water. Necessity is the mother of taking chances. Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid. Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits. One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives. Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed. Prosperity is the best protector of principle. Such is the human race, often it seems a pity that Noah…didn’t miss the boat. Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself. The Christian’s Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes. The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little. The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become. The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not. The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven. The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice. There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one – keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy. There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice. There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist. Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does all the work. To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble. Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it. Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t. When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear. When in doubt, tell the truth. When people do not respect us we are greatly offended; yet in his private heart, no man much respects himself. When red-haired people are above a certain social grade, their hair is auburn. When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain. Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved. Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. Return to Mark Twain Humorous Short Stories On-line from Mark Twain Quotes
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