Mark Twain Per Quotations

Who is this Renaissance? Where did he come from? Who gave him permission to cram the Republic with his execrable daubs?

An enemy can partly ruin a man, but it takes a good-natured injudicious friend to complete the thing and make it perfect.

There are those who imagine that the unlucky accidents of life—life's "experiences"—are in some way useful to us. I wish I could find out how. I never know one of them to happen twice. They always change off and swap around and catch you on your inexperienced side.

The two Great Unknowns, the two Illustrious Conjecturabilities! They are the best known unknown persons that have ever drawn breath upon the planet.

No one has ever seen a Republican mass meeting that was devoid of the perception of the ludicrous.

Ignorance, intolerance, egotism, self-assertion, opaque perception, dense and pitiful chuckle headedness - and an almost pathetic unconsciousness of it all, that is what I was at nineteen and twenty.

The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder's moral perceptions are known and conceded the world over; and a priveleged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name.

Often a quite assified remark becomes sanctified by use and petrified by custom; it is then a permanency, its term of activity a geologic period.

No one can write perfect English and keep it up through a stretch of ten chapters. It has never been done.

...we all know that in all matters of mere opinion that [every] man is insane-just as insane as we are...we know exactly where to put our finger upon his insanity: it is where his opinion differs from ours....All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it. None but the Republicans. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

The New York papers have long known that no large question is ever really settled until I have been consulted.

....try the mustard, - a man can't know what turnips are in perfection without mustard.

We never knew an ignorant person yet but was prejudiced.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there.

Stars are good too. I wish I could get some to put in my hair. But I suppose I never can. You would be surprised to find how far off they are, for they do not look it. When they first showed last night I tried to knock some down with a pole, but it didn't reach, which astonished me. Then I tried clods till I was all tired out, but I never got one. I did make some close shots, for I saw the black blot of the clod sail right into thee midst of the golden clusters forty or fifty times, just barely missing them, and if I could've held out a little longer, maybe I could've got one.

You cannot have all chiefs; you gotta have Indians too. Perfect love cannot be without equality. A friend to everybody and to nobody is the same thing. We are all alike, on the inside.

Never have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.

There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.

Satan hasn't a single salaried helper; the Opposition employs a million.

I'm all for prosperity. It's change I object to.

If you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.

Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence is likely to be at fault, after all, and therefore ought to be received with great caution. Take the case of any pencil, sharpened by any woman; if you have witnesses, you will find she did it with a knife; but if you take simply the aspect of the pencil, you will say that she did it with her teeth.

We like to read about rich people in the newspapers; the papers know it, and they do their best to keep this appetite liberally fed.

Perfect grammar - persistent, continuous, sustained - is the fourth dimension, so to speak; many have sought it, but none has found it.

Temperate temperance is best; intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance.

Except a person be part coward, it is not a compliment to say he is brave.

Is a person's public and private opinion the same? It is thought there have been instances.

Irrevence is another person's disrespect to your god; there isn't any word that tells what your disrespect to his god is.

When you ascend the hill of prosperity, may you not meet a friend.

Never argue with people who buy ink by the gallon....

Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know.

Plain question and plain answer make the shortest road out of most perplexities.

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

When the human race has once acquired a superstition, nothing short of death is ever likely to remove it.

Perseverance is a principle that should be commendable in those who have judgment to govern it

There is no such thing as ''the Queen's English.'' The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares!

The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are right.

The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong

A thoroughly beautiful woman and a thoroughly homely woman are creations which I love to gaze upon, and which I cannot tire of gazing upon, for each is perfect in her own line

You try to tell me anything about the newspaper business! Sir, I have been through it from Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands.

I shall not often meddle with politics, because we have a political Editor who is already excellent and only needs to serve a term or two in the penitentiary to be perfect

In my schoolboy days I had no aversion to slavery. I was not aware there was anything wrong about it. No-one arraigned it in my hearing; the local papers said nothing against it; the local pulpit taught us that God approved it, that it was a holy thing, and that the doubter need only look in the Bible if he wished to settle his mind.

That is their way, those plagues, those scientists - peg, peg, peg - dig, dig, dig - plod, plod, plod. I wish I could catch a cargo of them for my place; it would be an economy. Yes, for years, you see. They never give up. Patience, hope, faith, perseverance; it is the way of all the breed.

The person who has no opinion will seldom be wrong.

We must look for our own blame to find our own personality.

The plan of the newspaper is good and wise; when you can't get a compliment any other way, pay yourself one

None but the dead have free speech. None but the dead are permitted to speak truth.

A genuine expert can always foretell a thing that is 500 years away easier than he can a thing that's only 500 seconds off

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it / and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again / and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.

There is an old-time toast which is golden for its beauty. "When you ascend the hill of prosperity may you not meet a friend.

My experience with Providence has not been of a nature to give me great confidence in his judgment, and I consider that my wife crept in while his attention was occupied elsewhere

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.

If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.

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.

Sometimes my feelings are so hot that I have to take the pen and put them out on paper to keep them from setting me afire inside; then all that ink and labor are wasted because I can't print the results

A pilot must have a memory developed to absolute perfection. But there are two higher qualities which he also must have. He must have good and quick judgment and decision, and a cool, calm courage that no peril can shake.

Temper is what gets most of us into trouble. Pride is what keeps us there.

By his father he is English, by his mother he is American - to my mind the blend which makes the perfect man

Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.

I do not want Michaelangelo for breakfast - but for luncheon - for dinner - for tea - for supper - for between meals.

I owe a friend a dozen chickens, and I believe it will be cheaper to send eggs instead, and let them develop on the road.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn by no other way

I am a border ruffian from the State of Missouri,I am a Connecticut Yankee by adoption.In me you have Missouri morals,Connecticut culture;this gentlemaen,is the combination which makes the perfect man

The highest perfection of politeness is only a beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of ungraceful and gilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying.

By law of periodical repetition, everything which has happened once must happen again and again -- and not capriciously, but at regular periods, and each thing in its own period, not another's and each obeying its own law.

The banging and slamming and booming and crashing were something beyond belief. [On Lohengrin]

I hate editors, for they make me abandon a lot of perfectly good English words.

If you will notice, there is seldom a telegram in a paper which fails to show up one or more members & beneficiaries of our Civilization as promenading with his shirt-tail up & the rest of his regalia in the wash.

He was as shy as a newspaper is when referring to its own merits

The miracle or the power that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application and perseverance under the promptings of a brave, determined spirit.

Supposing is good, but finding out is better.

Senator: Person who makes laws in Washington when not doing time.

To be great, truly great, you have to be the kind of person who makes the others around you great.

Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.

Progressive improvement beats delayed perfection.

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.

Forget and forgive. This is not difficult when properly understood. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy.