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
animal men favors
It now seems plain to me that that theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one...the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.
animal men favors
I have been scientifically studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so-called,) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result profoundly humiliating to me. For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals; since it now seems plain to me that that theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.
change progress favors
I'm in favor of progress; it's change I don't like.
favors flattery compliment
Do not offer a compliment and ask a favor at the same time. A compliment that is charged for is not valuable.
cease easiest ought smoking thousand
To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did, I ought to know because I've done it a thousand times.
desire dig hidden life raging rightly somewhere time treasure
There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life that he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure
caught crucified
There has been only one Christian. They caught and crucified him early.
birth grieve involved rejoice
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved
barely good whiskey
Too much of anything is bad, but too much of good whiskey is barely enough.
belief believing schoolboy
Yet it was the schoolboy who said "Faith is believing what you know ain't so
age age-and-aging dark insanity knew misfortune
(Twain on Cain): it was his misfortune to live in a dark age that knew not the beneficent Insanity Plea
divide full joy love scholars-and-scholarship value
To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.
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
biography buttons cannot clothes himself man written
Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of a man - the biography of the man himself cannot be written