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
writing humble average
An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I've dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half... I never write metropolis for seven cents, because I can get the same money for city. I never write policeman, because I can get the same price for cop.... I never write valetudinarian at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn't do it for fifteen.
life struggle taken
A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle; ...they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble for little mean advantages over each other; age creeps upon them; infirmities follow; ...those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to aching grief. It comes at last--the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them--and they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence, ...a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever.
work intellectual society
Intellectual ''work'' is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward.
exaggeration-is merit humans
It is human to exaggerate the merits of the dead.
country prayer taxation
I don't know of a single foreign product that enters this country untaxed, except the answer to prayer.
honesty inspiration bbq
Always tell the truth; then you don't have to remember anything
kings way ornery
All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty ornery lot. It's the way they're raised.
punishment rocks law
Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.
editors trying newspapers
I am not the editor of a newspaper and shall always try to do right and be good so that God will not make me one.
frozen cold inches
Cold! If the thermometer had been an inch longer we'd all have frozen to death!
heart mind letters
The frankest and freest and privatest product of the human mind and heart is a love letter...
wonderful easier teach
To do right is wonderful. To teach others to do right is even more wonderful--and much easier.
lying book age
When a library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me.
doe done englishmen
An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before. An American is a person who does things because they haven't been done before.