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
believe average incredibles
There isn't anything so grotesque or so incredible that the average human being can't believe it.
philosophy men race
Every man is in his own person the whole human race without a detail lacking....I knew I should not find in any philosophy a single thought which had not passed through my own head, nor a single thought which had not passed through the heads of millions and millions of men before I was born.
men moral physical-courage
Why is it that, among men, physical courage is a trait so plenteous yet moral courage is a trait so rare?
country government patriot
A Patriot is someone who stands for his country always, and for his government when it is deserved.
cat
Cats are the wildest of the tame and the tamest of the wild
buffets happens
I told you this would happen. But, no, you had to go for the buffet, didn't you?
mistake long would-be
Learn from the mistakes of others - you won't live long enough to make them all yourself. He's opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer him the position.
tired sacrifice boys
So avoid using the word 'very' because it's lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don't use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won't do in your essays. What you do today is important, because you are sacrificing a day of your life for it. Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
prosperity objects
I'm all for prosperity. It's change I object to.
firsts reason
You can't reason someone out of something that they weren't reasoned into in the first place.
dream silly should-have
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.
southerner
The southerner talks music.
giving furniture break
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.
long witness bribe
The [Kodak is] the only witness I have encountered in my long experience that I couldn't bribe.