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
confidence good-life inspirational-life
A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
truth science fiction
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
humble air hands
Nevertheless we have this curious spectacle: daily the trained parrot in the pulpit gravely delivers himself of these ironies, which he has acquired at second-hand and adopted without examination, to a trained congregation which accepts them without examination, and neither the speaker nor the hearer laughs at himself. It does seem as if we ought to be humble when we are at a bench-show, and not put on airs of intellectual superiority there.
hunting names giving
when we badly want a thing, we go to hunting for good and righteous reasons for it; we give it that fine name to comfort our consciences, whereas we privately know we are only hunting for plausible ones.
father men monkeys
What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey.
peace truth war
The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
marriage promise welcome
Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: the one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it.
life inspiring truth
In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.
inspirational education learning
Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
nature animal men
It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
eight wife religion
The Koran does not permit Mohammedans to drink. Their natural instincts do not permit them to be moral. They say the Sultan has eight hundred wives. This almost amounts to bigamy.
liars holes mines
A mine is a hole in the ground with a liar on top.
real chance sin
A sin takes on a new and real terror when there seems a chance that it is going to be found out.
frogs explaining ends
Explaining humor is a lot like dissecting a frog, you learn a lot in the process, but in the end you kill it.