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
atheist character angel
Our Bible reveals to us the character of our god with minute and remorseless exactness... It is perhaps the most damnatory biography that exists in print anywhere. It makes Nero an angel of light and leading by contrast.
strong fighting land
There was no place in the land where the seeker could not find some small budding sign of pity for the slave. No place in all the land but one - the pulpit. It yielded last; it always does. It fought a strong and stubborn fight, and then did what it always does, joined the procession - at the tail end. Slavery fell. The slavery texts in the Bible remained; the practice changed; that was all.
sleep men giving
Give a man a reputation as an early riser and he can sleep 'til noon.
love love-is madness
Love is madness, if thwarted it develops fast.
liars three kind
There are three kinds of liars: liars, damned liars, and statisticians
laughing matter jokes
A German joke is no laughing matter.
grief loss years
When someone dies, it is like when your house burns down; it isn't for years that you realize the full extent of your loss.
secret progress
The secret of making progress is to get started.
party men thinking
Men think they think upon the great political questions, and they do; but they think with their party, not independently; they read its literature, but not that of the other side
love character winning
Praise is well, compliment is well, but affection-that is the last and most precious reward that any man can win, whether by character or achievement.
religious second-chance hands
In religion and politics, people's belief's and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination
house hatred enthusiasm
I felt it was my duty to praise all of God's works with fervent enthusiasm. At the same time I killed flies in my house in a spirit of hatred, exasperation and contempt. My praise to God for all his works was dishonest, the act of killing the fly was honest.
kings earth bread
Who are the oppressors? The few: the King, the capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat.
growing-up maturity people
I find no change of consequence in grown people, I do not miss the dead. It does not surprise me to hear that this friend or that friend died at such and such a time, because I fully expected that sort of news. But somehow I had made no calculation on the infants. It never occurred to me that infants grow up...These unexpected changes, from infancy to youth, and from youth to maturity, are by far the most startling things I meet with.