Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer. Among his novels are The Adventures of Tom Sawyerand its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the latter often called "The Great American Novel"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth30 November 1835
CountryUnited States of America
pride hands ideas
The kernel, the soul — let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances — is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing.
chickens
In my experience, previously counted chickens never do hatch.
laughing people church
I never made a success of a lecture delivered in a church yet. People are afraid to laugh in a church. They can't be made to do it in any possible way.
cutting play drawing
Low comedies are written for the drawing-room, the kitchen and the stable, and if you cut out the kitchen and the stable the drawing-room can't support the play by itself.
human-nature defeat humans
Human nature is the same everywhere; it deifies success, it has nothing but scorn for defeat.
natural clock wanted
I am as prompt as a clock, if I only know the day a thing is wanted—otherwise I am a natural procrastinaturalist.
horse people matter
People who always feel jolly, no matter where they are or what happens to them—who have the organ of hope preposterously developed—who are endowed with an uncongealable sanguine temperament—who never feel concerned about the price of corn—and who cannot, by any possibility, discover any but the bright side of a picture—are very apt to go to extremes, and exaggerate with 40-horse microscopic power.
done violent interest
My interest in my work dies a sudden and violent death when the work is done.
fool natural surface
Who would find out that I am a natural fool if I kept always cool and never let nature come to the surface? Nobody.
other-half phantoms wells
We chase phantoms half the days of our lives. It is well if we learn wisdom even then, and save the other half.
hate ignorance people
I always did hate for anyone to know what my plans or hopes or prospects were—for, if I kept people in ignorance in these matters, no one could be disappointed but myself, if they were not realized.
jobs men venture
When a humorist ventures upon the grave concerns of life he must do his job better than another man or he works harm to his cause.
women men knows
Men are easily dealt with--but when you get the women started, you are in for it, you know.
men religion want
What a man wants with religion in these breadless times, surpasses my comprehension.