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
brave bravest compliment consider coward creature creatures except fear ignorance loose merely
Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a loose application of the word. Consider the flea! -- incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage.
brave compliment creature except loose merely word
Except a creature be part coward, it is not a compliment to say he is brave; it is merely a loose misapplication of the word
america built loose towards
America is built on a tilt, and everything loose slides towards California.
afflict amusing array arrest ashamed bunch cash civilization corner government high holy hottest introduce islands lamp life loose moral novelty poor primitive simple sleepy splendor turn wise
We must annex those people. We can afflict them with our wise and beneficent government. We can introduce the novelty of thieves, all the way up from street-car pickpockets to municipal robbers and Government defaulters, and show them how amusing it is to arrest them and try them and then turn them loose -- some for cash and some for ''political influence.'' We can make them ashamed of their simple and primitive justice. We can make that little bunch of sleepy islands the hottest corner on earth, and array it in the moral splendor of our high and holy civilization. Annexation is what the poor islanders need. ''Shall we to men benighted, the lamp of life deny?''
boy building closed education farmer jail public river save schools spoke stopped time
When I was a boy on the Mississippi River there was a proposition in a township there to discontinue public schools because they were too expensive. An old farmer spoke up and said if they stopped building the schools they would not save anything, because every time a school was closed a jail had to be built.
astonished boy father hardly ignorant learned man seven stand
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he'd learned in seven years.
age-and-aging bed begin brains business forty main permanent regular since until
We have no permanent brains until we are forty. Then they begin to harden, presently they petrify, then business begins. Since forty I have been regular about going to bed and getting up -- and that is one of the main things.
boys children half nine
We have nine children now half boys and half girls.
side time whenever
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.
atlantic emerges german last literary side until verb whenever
Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.
knowing loudest
The person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
intended nobody offers pay somebody three until within wood writers-and-writing
Write without pay until somebody offers to pay you. If nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for.
funny compassion feelings
All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.
new-york men mark
Make your mark in New York and you are a made man.