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The Complete Mark Twain Collection QUOTES

The Complete Mark Twain Collection QUOTES

1 " There is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

2 " Prophecy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

3 " him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he can't do it, go and borrow one. In fact, the Leather Stocking Series ought to have been called the Broken Twig Series. I am sorry there is not room to put in a few dozen instances of the delicate art of the forest, as practised by Natty Bumppo and some of the other Cooperian experts. Perhaps we may venture two or three samples. Cooper was a sailor — a naval officer; yet he gravely tells us how a vessel, driving towards a lee shore in a gale, is steered for a particular spot by her skipper because he knows of an undertow there which will hold her back against the gale and save her. For just pure woodcraft, or sailorcraft, or whatever it is, isn't that neat? For several years Cooper was daily in the society of artillery, and he ought to have noticed that when a cannon-ball strikes the ground it either buries itself or skips a hundred feet or so; skips again a hundred feet or so — and so on, till finally it gets tired and rolls. Now in one place he loses some "females" — as he always calls women — in the edge of a wood near a plain at night in a fog, on purpose to give Bumppo a chance to show off the delicate art of the forest before the "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

4 " Yes, I am of old family, and not illiterate. I am a fossil."   "A which?"   "Fossil. The first horses were fossils. They date back two million years. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

5 " DECEMBER 26TH. The dog came to see me at eight o’clock this morning. He was very affectionate, poor orphan! My room will be his quarters hereafter. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

6 " The church is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example. It is still clinging to one or two things which were useful once, but which are not useful now, neither are they ornamental. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

7 " But perhaps the most poetical thing Pompeii has yielded to modern research, was that grand figure of a Roman soldier, clad in complete armor; who, true to his duty, true to his proud name of a soldier of Rome, and full of the stern courage which had given to that name its glory, stood to his post by the city gate, erect and unflinching, till the hell that raged around him burned out the dauntless spirit it could not conquer. We never read of Pompeii but we think of that soldier; we can not write of Pompeii without the natural impulse to grant to him the mention he so well deserves. Let us remember that he was a soldier--not a policeman --and so, praise him. Being a soldier, he staid,--because the warrior instinct forbade him to fly. Had he been a policeman he would have staid, also--because he would have been asleep. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

8 " 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 knew one of them to happen twice. They always change off and swap around and catch you on your inexperienced side. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

9 " Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

10 " All diets are wholesome. Some are wholesomer than others, but all the ordinary diets are wholesome enough for the people who use them. Whether the food be fine or coarse it will taste good and it will nourish if a watch be kept upon the appetite and a little starvation introduced every time it weakens. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

11 " In our own case--we are not afraid of dynamite till we get acquainted with it. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

12 " Ah, Antonio, it IS the noblest sport that ever was. I would give a year of my life to see it. Is the bull always killed?"   "Yes. Sometimes a bull is timid, finding himself in so strange a place, and he stands trembling, or tries to retreat. Then everybody despises him for his cowardice and wants him punished and made ridiculous; so they hough him from behind, and it is the funniest thing in the world to see him hobbling around on his severed legs; the whole vast house goes into hurricanes of laughter over it; I have laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks to see it. When he has furnished... "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

13 " It is most difficult to understand the disposition of the Bible God, it is such a confusion of contradictions; of watery instabilities and iron firmness; of goody-goody abstract morals made out of words, and concreted hell-born ones made out of acts; of fleeting kindness repented of in permanent malignities. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

14 " There are not enough morally brave men in stock. We are out of moral-courage material; we are in a condition of profound poverty. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

15 " There is a Moral sense, and there is an Immoral Sense. History shows us that the Moral Sense enables us to perceive morality and how to avoid it, and that the Immoral Sense enables us to perceive immorality and how to enjoy it. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

16 " Outside influences, outside circumstances, wind the MAN and regulate him. Left to himself, he wouldn't get regulated at all, and the sort of time he would keep would not be valuable. Some rare men are wonderful watches, with gold case, compensation balance, and all those things, and some men are only simple and sweet and humble Waterburys. I am a Waterbury. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

17 " There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and the three form a rising scale of compliment: 1--to tell him you have read one of his books; 2--to tell him you have read all of his books; 3--to ask him to let you read the manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you to his respect; No. 2 admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries you clear into his heart. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

18 " They know, too, that while in history-building a fact is better than a presumption, it doesn't take a presumption long to bloom into a fact when THEY have the handling of it. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

19 " It should know that any strange and much-talked-of event is always followed by imitations, the world being so well supplied with excitable people who only need a little stirring up to make them lose what is left of their heads and do things which they would not have thought of ordinarily. It should know that if a man jump off Brooklyn Bridge another will imitate him; that if a person venture down Niagara Whirlpool in a barrel another will imitate him; that if a Jack the Ripper make notoriety by slaughtering women in dark alleys he will be imitated; that if a man attempt a king’s life and the newspapers carry the noise of it around the globe, regicides will crop up all around. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection

20 " There is a great difference in boats, of course. For a long time I was on a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we left port in. But of course this was at rare intervals. Ferryboats used to lose valuable trips because their passengers grew old and died, waiting for us to get by. "

― Mark Twain , The Complete Mark Twain Collection