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
advice worst
Be Yourself is about the worst advice you can give to people.
act desire drinking full leaving mere refusing seems system war
The system of refusing the mere act of drinking and leaving the desire in full force, is unintelligent war tactics, it seems to me
imbeciles mean people putting run smart whether wonder
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.
conscience rest room takes
Conscience takes up more room than all the rest of a person's insides.
authority instinct natural passively recognized vague yield
Conformity-the natural instinct to passively yield to that vague something recognized as authority
acquiring duty golden habit rule
Do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.
history looks older together twice
Varanasi" is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together
again careful cat caution cold experience hot lest sit stop wisdom
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it / and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again / and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
ask honesty man says
There's one way to find out if a man is honest: ask him; if he says yes, you know he is crooked.
critics-and-criticism degraded trade trades
The trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades
academy boots born capacity chance greatest happens heaven knew meet military napoleon people shining
Well, we can take you to meet Napoleon -- but he's shining the boots of the person who actually was the world's greatest military genius. He happens to have been a tinsmith from Pennsylvania who never had a chance to go to a military academy -- so he never even knew he was a great military genius. He was born with that capacity -- and only here in heaven do we actually know who these people are.
army army-and-navy born borrowed courage fight
That's what an army is - a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.
army army-and-navy born borrowed courage fight
That's what an army is -- a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.
arrogance books drinks everybody geniuses great water wine
My books are water; those of great geniuses are wine everybody drinks water