Mark Twain's phrases, quotes and aphorisms from this nineteenth-century American writer and teacher, author of masterpieces such as the adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Aphorisms by Mark Twain
- The fact that man knows how to distinguish right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority over other creatures; but the fact that he can do it wrong proves his moral inferiority with respect to any creature that cannot do it.
- If you wish to inflict a treacherous and cruel punishment on a young person, oblige him to keep a diary every year.
- One of the fundamental differences between a cat and a lie is that the cat has only nine lives.
- If the animals could speak, the dog would be a coarse, hairless type. The cat, on the other hand, would have the rare gift of never saying a word too many.
- We are always more anxious to distinguish ourselves for a talent that we do not possess, than to be appreciated for the fifteen talents that we possess.
- Nothing was created in vain, but the fly came close to us.
- We should be careful in drawing from an experience only the wisdom that is contained in it - and stop there, otherwise we would do like the cat sitting on a hot plate. He will never sit on a hot plate again - and that's good, but he will never sit on a cold plate again.
- In twenty years you will not be disappointed with the things you have done but with those you have not done. Then lift your anchor, abandon safe ports, catch the wind in your sails. Explore. Do you dream. Discover.
- An illustrious man should pay attention to his last words ... write them on a piece of paper and have them judged by his friends. Of course, he shouldn't leave such a thing at the last hour of his life.
- The two most important days of your life are when you are born and when you understand why you were born.
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- Humor is a great thing, it is what saves us. As soon as all of our irritations, all our resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit arises in their place.
- Each of us is a moon: it has a dark side that it never shows to anyone.
- Every person is a book, every year a chapter.
- The secret of success in life is to make your vocation your fun.
- Men were bad subjects and, since he did not know how to correct them, God wisely decided to destroy them. This is the only enlightened and elevated idea that the Bible attributes to him, and his reputation would have been guaranteed for eternity if only he had been able to remain faithful and implement it.
- I choose heaven for the climate and hell for the company.
- The gods offer no reward for the intellect. None of them have ever shown that they are in the least interested.
- I discovered that there is no safer way to find out if people like us or hate them than to travel with them.
- It is not wise to use morals on weekdays; so it happens that we find it in disorder on Sunday.
- Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has simply laid an egg cackles as if it has laid an asteroid.
- There is no point in going eight kilometers on foot to fish when you can be just as unlucky in your home.
- Wrinkles should simply indicate the place where the smiles were.
- Never be arrogant with the humble, without being humble with the arrogant.
- Stay away from people who try to diminish your ambitions. Small people always do it, but really big people make you feel that you too can grow up.
- As for the adjective, if in doubt, delete it.
- Of all animals, man is the only one who is cruel. He is the only one who inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.
- It is by divine goodness that in our country we have these three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence to never practice any of them.
- If you pick up a hungry dog and feed it, it won't bite you. Here is the difference between man and dog.
- Faith is believing what you know is not so.
- All you need in this life is ignorance and trust, then success is assured.
- If you put things in the right proportions, it is better to be a young beetle than an old bird of paradise.
- Never argue with an idiot: he drags you to his level and beats you with experience.
- Why are we rejoicing at a birth and grieving at a funeral? Because we are not the person in question.
- A lie has time to travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.
- The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
- A banker is someone who lends you his umbrella when the sun is out, but wants it back as soon as it starts to rain.
- If we wanted to understand what the human race really consists of, we would just have to observe it in time of elections.
- The journalist is the one who distinguishes the true from the false ... and publishes the false.
- With subtle irony we dignify God with the name of Father, even though we know well that a father like him would hang him, if we could catch him.
- In a good bookshop one feels, in some mysterious way, that the wisdom contained in all the books is being absorbed in an epidermic way, without even opening them.
- The right word can be effective, but no word is as effective as silence at the right time.
- Do not allow anyone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be just one of his choices.
- I was born modest; not everywhere, but in spots.
- The right place for a friend is to be on your side when you are wrong. Almost everyone is on your side when you are right.
- Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.
- Mankind has only one truly effective weapon: laughter.
- Anyone who has lived long enough to understand what life is, knows what a deep debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death to the world.
- Quitting smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I have done it thousands of times.
- Many small things have become large with appropriate use of advertising.
- The truth is that men do not think: they think only of thinking, while in reality they do not think.
- Unfortunately, when you end up in prison, you find that there are rogues there too, as everywhere.
- Anger is an acid that can cause more damage to the vessel that contains it than to anything else on which it is poured.
- My mom had a lot of trouble with me, but I think she liked it.
- We go to heaven by virtue of grace. If you went on merit, you would stay outside and your dog would come in.
- Last week I declared that this woman was the ugliest woman I have ever seen. I have since received a visit from your sister and now I want to retract my statement.
- It is not nice that everyone should think the same way, it is the difference of opinions that makes horse racing possible.
- Discovery of America. Of course, it was great to find America; but losing it would have been even more beautiful.
- It was wonderful to discover America, but it would have been even more wonderful to ignore it.
- The noblest work of God? The man. Who Discovered It? The man.
- We can get the approval of others, if we act well and make a commitment in the purpose; but our own approval is worth a thousand times more.
- The 'case' was the greatest of inventors.
- Work consists of whatever the body is forced to do ... Playing consists of anything the body is not forced to do.
- Why spend money on rebuilding your family tree? Do politics and your opponents will take charge.
- Always do what's right. You will satisfy half of mankind and amaze the other half.
- In Paris they looked at me in amazement when I spoke to them in French; I never managed to get those idiots to understand their language.
- When you need a friend, it's too late to make one.
- Part of the secret to success in life is eating what you like and letting your food do it on its own when it's inside.
- Never put off until tomorrow what you can do very well the day after tomorrow.
- There are many fun things in the world: one of these is the idea conceived by the white man to be less wild than the other savages.
- I had been dead for millions of years before I was born and this fact never bothered me in the least.
- We are all made the same way: when we know something, we feel nothing but contempt for those who do not know it.
- Do something you don't like every day: this is the golden rule to get used to doing your homework effortlessly.
- Youth is splendid. Too bad to waste it with young people.
- Good manners consist in hiding how well we think about ourselves and how bad about others.
- Be careful when reading medical books. You may die of a printing error.
- Better to give than to receive, especially advice.
- Ignorant people think that it is the noise that cats make while fighting that it is so unbearable, but it is not so; it's the nauseous grammar they use.
- I made myself a rule never to smoke when I'm asleep, and never to abstain when I'm awake.
- Some people think honesty is always the best tactic. It is a superstition. Sometimes, the mere impression of honesty is worth six times as much.
- There are three things men can do with women: love them, make them suffer or turn them into literature.
- No pain from which we are afflicted can be called lowest: according to the eternal laws of proportion, a child who loses his doll and a king who loses his crown are events of the same size.
- The only sport I have practiced in my life is to go to the funeral of my sports friends.
- Every man should have a large cemetery in which to bury the sins of his friends.
- The moral sense teaches us what is right and how to avoid it ... if unpopular.
- When I was fourteen, my father was so ignorant that I had a hard time putting up with his presence around. When I turned twenty-one, I was amazed at how much the old man had learned in seven years.
- Mental health and happiness are an impossible combination.
- I was unable to attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approve it.
- The Bible reveals to us the character of our god with exactness and detail without remorse. It is perhaps the most accusatory biography that has ever been printed. In comparison it makes Nero an angel.
- A man with a new idea is not calm until he realizes it.
- Many people are concerned about those passages of scripture that they don't understand, but the passages that worry me are the ones I understand.
- Golf is ruining a nice walk.
Quotes by Mark Twain
- The Bible is very interesting. It contains noble poems, witty tales, bloody stories, good moral principles, a mine of obscenity and more than a thousand lies.
- October: this is one of the particularly dangerous months to invest in stocks. Other dangerous months are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.
- There was only one Christian. They took him and crucified him ... immediately.
- April 1st is the day we remember what we are in the other 364 days of the year.
- Of all the experiences you live, consider only the wisdom they contain.
- Education: what reveals to the wise and hides to the stupid, the limits of their vast knowledge.
- If you don't read the newspapers you are not informed. If you read the newspapers, you are misinformed.
- The Christian attributes to the Creator all the characteristics of a rascal, and then comes to the conclusion that a rascal and a father are the same thing!
- Appreciation is good, compliment is good, but affection - that is the last and most precious reward that every man can win, both with character and with results.
- It often happens that those who cannot tell lies consider themselves the best judge.
- It takes your enemy and your friend together to hit you in the heart: the first to slander you, the second to come and tell you.
- There are people who are good enough to write two books at the same time: the first and the last.
- Let's not be too demanding: it is better to have second choice diamonds than not to possess them at all.
- My books are like water, those of great talents are wine. (Fortunately) everyone drinks water.
- Man is the only animal that blushes. Or who needs it.
- It is in our nature to be conformists. It is a force that not many can successfully oppose. What is its origin? The innate need for self-approval.
- The dog is a gentleman. I hope to go to his paradise not to that of men.
- Conformism: the natural instinct to passively give to that vague something recognized as authority.
- Work consists of whatever a person is forced to do, while Fun consists of anything that same person is not forced to do at all.
- Adam was simply a human being, and that explains everything. He didn't want the apple for the love of the apple. He only wanted it because it was forbidden. The mistake was not to forbid the snake; because then he would eat the snake.
- It's better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you're a fool than to open it and remove any doubts.
- We are discreet sheep, we wait to see where the shepherd goes, and then we go with the shepherd.
- Education: the path from arrogant ignorance to miserable uncertainty.
- Promising not to do something is the safest way for someone to have a mad desire to do it.
- Religion was invented when the first swindler met the first fool.
- It is better to deserve honors and not to have them than to have them and not to deserve them.
- There is nothing that can be said in response to a compliment. I myself have been complimented a large number of times, and I have always felt embarrassed: I always have the feeling that they have not said enough.
- A man who does not read good books has no advantage over what he cannot read.
- If you always tell the truth you don't need to remember everything.
- The best of us would rather be popular than be right.
- Kindness is the language that the deaf hears and the blind sees.
- A man is welcomed into church for what he believes and is driven out of what he knows.
- I never let the school interfere with my education.
- Nothing needs to be changed as much as the habits of others.
- Buy land because nobody produces it anymore.
- An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before. An American is a person who does things because they have never been done before.
- If everyone was satisfied with themselves, there would be no heroes.
- Life would be infinitely happier if we were born at eighty and gradually approached eighteen.
- Facts are not our forte when we contemplate ourselves.
- First of all, you need to be clear about the facts; so you can distort them as you please.
- The best way to be happy is to try to cheer someone else up.
- Fame is a steam, popularity is an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.
- The only way to stay healthy is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you would prefer to avoid.
- The facts are stubborn, but the statistics are more flexible.
- The fact that man knows how to distinguish between good and evil demonstrates his intellectual superiority over other creatures; but the fact that he can perform evil deeds demonstrates his moral inferiority compared to all other creatures who are unable to do them.
- Be virtuous and you will become eccentric.
- History does not repeat itself, but rhymes.
- The public is the only critic whose opinion is really worth something.
- A crime that has been perpetually committed for a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime and becomes a virtue.
- It is noble to be good, but it is more noble to teach others to be good, and it is less tiring.
- If in doubt, tell the truth. It will confuse your enemies and amaze your friends.
- Clothes make man. Naked people have little or no influence over society.
- In my life I have never performed a virtuous or other action that I have not regretted within 24 hours.
- There are several valid defenses against temptation, but the safest is cowardice.
- Religion consists of a set of things that the average man thinks he believes and would like to be true.
- It is curious that physical courage is so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
- If Christ were here, there is one thing he would never want to be: a Christian.
- Man is convinced that he is the Creator's darling, he believes that the Creator is proud of him and even that he loves him, that he has a real passion for him, that he watches the night to admire him (think a little!), That protect him and keep him away from misfortunes. Pray to the Creator, and believe that he will listen to him.
- The holy passion of friendship is so sweet and steadfast and loyal and lasting in nature that it will last a lifetime if you do not ask to lend money.
- Ideas should always be left in heaven; there is not one who, going down to earth, does not go for a visit to the brothel.
- I made myself a rule not to smoke more than one cigar at a time.
- Remember that venerable proverb: children and fools always tell the truth. The logical consequence is obvious: adults and sages never say it.
- Much of my life has been spent worrying about things that never happened.
- If one is incapable of deceiving himself, it is likely that he is incapable of deceiving others.
- Often the best way to misinform is to tell the simple truth.
- If man had created man, he would be ashamed of his work.
- This is the epitome of life. The first half consists in the ability to enjoy without having the possibility; the second in possibility without capacity.
- Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.
- I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I had to write a long one.
- All religions publish Bibles against Satan, and say the most outrageous things about him, but we never listen to his version.
- Man is a creature made at the end of a week's work in which God was tired.
- We two together cover all knowledge, he knows everything that can be known, and I know the rest.
- I can teach anyone how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anyone who can tell me what he wants.
- Familiarity breeds contempt ... and children.
- A compliment is something that is said in your face but that no one would ever say behind your back.
- I don't mind a dried fig of a man who can spell a word in one direction.
- We swear as long as we can. In heaven we will not be allowed.
- Civilization is the unlimited multiplication of unnecessary needs.
- What God lacks are beliefs, consistency. It should be Presbyterian, Catholic or something else, not try to be everything.
- Consciousness takes more space than all vital organs, yet it does not serve a shit.
- Pain can take care of itself, but to understand the full value of joy you need to have someone with you to share it with.
- Assuming is good, but finding out is better.
- Only presidents, editors and people with intestinal worms have the right to use the 'we' editorial.
- The crowd is the most miserable thing there is.
- The right word can be effective, but no word will ever be as effective as a break at the right time.
- Many children in public schools seem to know only two dates: 1492 and 4th of July; and normally they don't know what happened in both events.
- A dozen fake compliments stand better than a single sincere reproach.
- God invented man because he was disappointed with the monkey.
- If the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is to eat a live frog, you will be aware that nothing worse can happen to you.
- Gratitude is a debt that usually piles up like blackmail: the more you pay the more they ask for it.
Mark Twain phrases
- Irreverence is the champion of freedom and its only certain defense.
- It is good to start living poor, it is good to start living rich: both ways are healthy. But start poor with the prospect of getting rich! Who has not tried it cannot imagine what curse it is.
- The human history of every age is red with blood, poisoned with hatred and stained with cruelty, but it is only from the times of the Bible that these characteristics have had no limits.
- In a speech, what is essential is not information but eloquence.
- It is not true that being rich is that great fortune that everyone says. It only means taking it and taking it, laboring and laboring and continually wishing to be dead.
- I never ask what race a man belongs to; all I need to know is that he is a human being: it could not be anything worse.
- Speaking of patriotism, what a fraud it is; is a word that always commemorates theft. There is not a meter of land in the world that does not represent the expulsion and re-expulsion of a long series of successive owners.
- Habit is habit, and it must not be thrown out of the window by anyone; but persuaded to go down the stairs one step at a time.
- It is not true that husbands, as soon as they see a beautiful woman, forget that they are married. On the contrary: in those moments they remember it painfully.
- Nothing is sadder to look at than a pessimistic young man, except an old optimist.
- Censorship is to tell an adult man that he can't eat a steak because a baby doesn't have teeth.
- A classic is something that everyone would like to read and nobody wants to read.
- There are no different types of vanities, there are only different types of ability to conceal it.
- There are three things that a woman is capable of doing with nothing: a hat, a salad and a scene.
- We should be grateful for both marriage and death: the first promises us happiness; the second guarantees it with certainty.
- The thunder is great, the thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the job.
- I don't like work even if someone else does it.
- Such is the human race. Sometimes it seems a pity that Noah and his people have not lost the ship.
- One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that many believed it. Many also believed that the world was flat.
- We all live under the protection of cowardice which we call principles.
- There are those who are unable to lie. But I do, but I don't. My principles are higher and noble.
- Don't go around saying that the world owes you something.The world owes you nothing; was here before you.
- If it were possible to cross man with cat, the human race would improve but the feline one would deteriorate.
- Be neglected in your clothes if necessary, but keep your soul in order.
- Healthy and intelligent human beings are like all other human beings, and they hide their real private opinions from the world with caution and diligence while providing fictitious opinions to their advantage for general use.
- Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
- Each race decides for itself what is indecent. Nature knows no indecency. It is man who invented them.
- Among the pleasures of this world, man mostly prefers sexual intercourse, so much so that he has excluded it from his paradise.
- The life, freedom or property of no man is safe, while the legislature is legislating.
- When people don't respect us we are violently offended. Yet no man, in his heart, respects himself very much.
- It is not wise to blow on the fire of a slander, unless by keeping it alive, one does not benefit greatly. Few slanders resist the wear and tear of silence.
- God so atrocious in the Old Testament, so attractive in the New: Jekyll and Hyde of the sacred story.
- There are basically two types of people. The people who make things, and the people who claim to have made them. The first group is less crowded.
- Use the right word, not your second cousin.
- Always do the right thing. You will reward some, and amaze others.
- The history of the human race, and the individual experience of each of us, are completely punctuated by the evidence that a truth is not difficult to kill and that a well-told lie is immortal.
- Make money and the whole world will conspire to call you a gentleman.
- Worrying about something is like paying interest on a debt that you are not even sure you have.
- There are many scapegoats for our sins, but the most popular is providence.
- The danger does not come from what we do not know, but from what we believe is true and instead it is not.
- The fact that I believe without difficulty that the religions of others are pure madness leads me to believe that mine too.
- Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of you.
- When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life becomes understandable.
- At first God created idiots. To practice. Then he created the school boards.
- Truth is the most precious asset we have, so we will have to save it.
- Education is the organized defense of adults against youth.
- We said that there was no better house than the raft, after all. All other places are so narrow and closed, but the raft is not. On the raft you feel free, calm and happy.
- A man who has a new idea is a nutcracker until that idea is successful.
- The unspoken words are a capital. You can invest it or squander it.
- Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage that he studied at Harvard.
- The bed is the most dangerous place in the world: eighty percent of people die there.
- The difference between an almost right word and the right word is really a big question - it's the difference between the firefly and the lightning.
- Nobody is as vulgar as extremely sophisticated people.
- People usually use statistics like a drunk on street lamps: more for support than for lighting.
- The truth is powerful and will prevail. There is nothing to complain about, only that it is not so.
- What privilege Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew that no one had ever said it before.
- Whenever you are inclined to write 'a lot', replace it with a dirty word; your publisher will delete it and the writing will still be as it should be.
- Everything that is human is pathetic. The secret source of Humor itself is not joy, but pain. There is no humor in heaven.
- Some revere hierarchies, some heroes, some power, others God and these ideals argue without being able to find an agreement, but all revere money.
- The worst loneliness is not being comfortable with yourself.
- Don't separate yourself from illusions. When they are gone, it may be that you are still there, but you will have ceased to live.
- Man is full of contradictions: in his home he demands to be served as in a hotel and, when he is in a hotel, he gets dry if everything is not like at home.
- The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our opponents are crazy.
- All medical discoveries can be traced back to the short formula: moderately drunk water is not harmful.
- Few of us endure prosperity.That of the others, I mean.
- It usually takes me three weeks to prepare a good improvised speech.
- The less reasons there are to justify a traditional custom, the more difficult it is to get rid of it.
- It is easier to deceive people than to convince them that they have been deceived.
- The revolutionary of a century is the conservative of the next. The revolutionary invents ideas. When he has exhausted them, the conservative makes them his.
- The joke is the sudden marriage of ideas that before their union had no perception of their relationship.
- The first thing a missionary teaches a savage is indecency.
- I am a Democrat only on principle, but not on instinct, nobody is. No doubt some say they are, but this world is sadly devoted to lies.
- No property has a permanent value except the grave.
- By making an effort, we can easily learn to endure adversity - above all, that of another.
- This is a solemn thought: dead, the flesh of the noblest of men is less than that of animals.
- Jesus died to save men ... something of little consequence for an immortal, and in any case he did not save many.
- For a human being, being envied is the greatest joy.
- In certain circumstances, a blasphemy provides relief that is also denied by prayer.
- Consciousness is that inner voice that warns us, when we least expect it, that someone is looking at us.
- If I can't smoke cigars in heaven, I won't go.
- A half-truth is the vilest of lies.
- If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill always came together, who would escape the gallows?
- We must be grateful because stupid people exist. If it weren't for them the rest of us couldn't have been successful.
- The journey is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.
- Thousands of men of genius live and die without being discovered: either by themselves or by others.
- When everyone is looking for gold, it is a good time to start trading in shovels and ice axes.
- Not all horses are born equal. Some were born to win.
- There are two cases in the life of a man in which he must not speculate on the stock exchange: when he cannot afford it, and when he can.
- A successful book is not made up of what's inside it, but of what's left outside.
- Forgiveness is the fragrance that violet leaves on the heel that has crushed it.
