Quotes Mark Twain - page 5
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There is only one expert who is qualified to examine the souls and the life of a people and make a valuable report - the native novelist. ... And when a thousand able novels have been written, there you have the soul of the people; and not anywhere else can these be had.
Not until you become a stranger to yourself will you be able to make acquaintance with the Friend.
Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which the other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.
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I have never heard enough classical music to be able to enjoy it; & the simple truth is, I detest it. Not mildly, but will all my heart. To me an opera is the very climax & cap-stone of the absurd, the fantastic the unjustifiable. I hate the very name of opera - partly because of the nights of suffering I have endured in its presence, & partly because I want to love it and can't.
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.
When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.
A man who keeps company with glaciers comes to feel tolerably insignificiant by and by. The Alps and the glaciers together are able to take every bit of conceit out of a man and reduce his self-importance to zero if he will only remain within the influence of their sublime presence long enough to give it a fair and reasonable chance to do its work.
Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. I would not interfere with any one's religion, either to strengthen it or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one's religion can affect his hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion may be. But it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life-hence it is a valuable possession to him.
So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked.
It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it.
Troubles are only mental; it is the mind that manufactures them, and the mind can gorge them, banish them, abolish them.
Not a single right is indestructible: a new might can at any time abolish it, hence, man possesses not a single permanent right. God is Might (and He is shifty, malicious, and uncertain).
When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are in the right.
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When all is said and done, the one sole condition that makes spiritual happiness and preserves it is the absence of doubt.
