Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer. Among his novels are The Adventures of Tom Sawyerand its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the latter often called "The Great American Novel"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth30 November 1835
CountryUnited States of America
life success food
Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
wedding flower sunshine
A marriage...makes of two fractional lives a whole; it gives to two purposeless lives a work, and doubles the strength of each to perform it; it gives to two questioning natures a reason for living, and something to live for; it will give a new gladness to the sunshine, a new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth, and a new mystery to life.
doe judgment good-judgment
Good judgment comes from experience. And where does experience come from? Experience comes from bad judgment.
sound
It's not as bad as it sounds.
god fashion leaving
Leaving out the gamblers, the burglars, and the plumbers, perhaps we do put our trust in God after a fashion. But, after all, it is an overstatement. If the cholera or black plague should come to these shores, perhaps the bulk of the nation would pray to be delivered from it, but the rest would put their trust in The Health Board...
character home typewriters
I will now claim - until dispossesed - that I was the first person in the world to apply the typewriter to literature. ... The early machine was full of caprices, full of defects- devilish ones. It had as many immoralities as the machine of today has virtues. After a year or two I found that it was degrading my character, so I thought I would give it to Howells. ... He took it home to Boston, and my morals began to improve, but his have never recovered.
sunday america issues
There is no family in America without a clock, and consequently there is no fair pretext for the usual Sunday medley of dreadful sounds that issues from our steeples.
along damage duration electric enjoys fools humor lightning wit
Wit and Humor -- if any difference, it is in duration -- lightning and electric light. Same material, apparently; but one is vivid, and can do damage -- the other fools along and enjoys elaboration.
becomes grounded moment wisdom
Wit, by itself, is of little account. It becomes a moment only when grounded on wisdom.
gone lead moved number people reflect
When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know who have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.
academy boots born capacity chance greatest happens heaven knew meet military napoleon people shining
Well, we can take you to meet Napoleon -- but he's shining the boots of the person who actually was the world's greatest military genius. He happens to have been a tinsmith from Pennsylvania who never had a chance to go to a military academy -- so he never even knew he was a great military genius. He was born with that capacity -- and only here in heaven do we actually know who these people are.
afflict amusing array arrest ashamed bunch cash civilization corner government high holy hottest introduce islands lamp life loose moral novelty poor primitive simple sleepy splendor turn wise
We must annex those people. We can afflict them with our wise and beneficent government. We can introduce the novelty of thieves, all the way up from street-car pickpockets to municipal robbers and Government defaulters, and show them how amusing it is to arrest them and try them and then turn them loose -- some for cash and some for ''political influence.'' We can make them ashamed of their simple and primitive justice. We can make that little bunch of sleepy islands the hottest corner on earth, and array it in the moral splendor of our high and holy civilization. Annexation is what the poor islanders need. ''Shall we to men benighted, the lamp of life deny?''
easiest habit ought smoking stop thousand
To stop smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know; I've done it a thousand times.
convict conviction known man people settled
When a man is known to have no settled convictions of his own he can't convict other people