Quotes by Twain, Mark

"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow."

Twain, Mark on procrastination
9 fans of this quote   

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

Twain, Mark on prosperity   

"Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know."

Twain, Mark on prosperity   

"There are many scapegoats for our sins, but the most popular is providence."

Twain, Mark on providence   

"Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits."

Twain, Mark on reform
5 fans of this quote   

"I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious -- except he purposely shut the eyes of his mind and keep them shut by force."

Twain, Mark on religion   

"It is a good and gentle religion, but inconvenient."

Twain, Mark on religion   

"In his private heart no man much respects himself."

Twain, Mark on respectability   

"When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself."

Twain, Mark on respectability
3 fans of this quote   

"No God and no religion can survive ridicule. No political church, no nobility, no royalty or other fraud, can face ridicule in a fair field, and live."

Twain, Mark on ridicule   

"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."

Twain, Mark on right and rightness
7 fans of this quote   

"A monarch, when good, is entitled to the consideration which we accord to a pirate who keeps Sunday School between crimes; when bad, he is entitled to none at all."

Twain, Mark on royalty   

"It is a good idea to obey all the rules when you're young just so you'll have the strength to break them when you're old."

Twain, Mark on rules
8 fans of this quote   

"Out of the unconscious lips of babes and sucklings are we satirized."

Twain, Mark on sarcasm   

"I refused to attend his funeral. But I wrote a very nice letter explaining that I approved of it."

Twain, Mark on sarcasm
5 fans of this quote   

"Scientists have odious manners, except when you prop up their theory; then you can borrow money of them."

Twain, Mark on science   

"Everyone is like a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody."

Twain, Mark on secrets
10 fans of this quote   

"What do we call love, hate, charity, revenge, humanity, forgiveness? Different results of the master impulse, the necessity of securing one's self-approval."

Twain, Mark on self-approval   

"The most difficult We do not deal in facts when we are contemplating ourselves."

Twain, Mark on self-esteem   

"The law of God, as quite plainly expressed in woman's construction, is this: There shall be no limit put upon your intercourse with the other sex sexually, at any time of life. During twenty-three days in every month (in the absence of pregnancy) from the time a woman is seven years old till she dies of old age, she is ready for action, and competent. As competent as the candlestick is to receive the candle. Competent every day, competent every night. Also, she wants that candle -- yearns for it, longs for it, hankers after it, as commanded by the law of God in her heart."

Twain, Mark on sex   

"The Pause; that impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words, however so felicitous, could accomplish it."

Twain, Mark on silence
4 fans of this quote   

"It takes an enemy and a friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart. The one to slander you, and the other to get the news to you."

Twain, Mark on slander
4 fans of this quote   

"Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been."

Twain, Mark on smile
6 fans of this quote   

"To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did, I ought to know because I've done it a thousand times."

Twain, Mark on smoking   

"I could have become a soldier if I had waited; I knew more about retreating than the man who invented retreating."

Twain, Mark on soldier   

"If you have nothing to say, say nothing."

Twain, Mark on speakers and speaking
6 fans of this quote   

"There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus."

Twain, Mark on speakers and speaking
3 fans of this quote   

"There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it, and when he can."

Twain, Mark on speculation
6 fans of this quote   

"It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech."

Twain, Mark on speech   

"There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Twain, Mark on statistics
4 fans of this quote   

"October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February."

Twain, Mark on stock market   

"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure."

Twain, Mark on success
5 fans of this quote   

"Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed."

Twain, Mark on success
3 fans of this quote   

"We need not worry so much about what man descends from; it's what he descends to that shames the human race."

Twain, Mark on success
9 fans of this quote   

"There's always something about your success that displeases even your best friends."

Twain, Mark on success
4 fans of this quote   

"A man's house burns down. The smoking wreckage represents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and pleasant associations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he misses this, then that, then the other thing. And when he casts about for it he finds that it was in that house. Always it is an essential -- there was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It was in that house. It is irrevocably lost. It will be years before the tale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know the magnitude of his disaster."

Twain, Mark on bereavement   

"Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written."

Twain, Mark on biography   

"There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy."

Twain, Mark on biography
6 fans of this quote   

"She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot."

Twain, Mark on birds   

"Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to."

Twain, Mark on blush
3 fans of this quote