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
over-you moments free-will
Start it at no particular time of your life; wander at your free will all over your life; talk only about the thing which interests you for the moment; drop it the moment its interest threatens to pale.
departed matter would-be
If they [the dead] should speak, it would be found that in matters of opinion no departed person was exactly what he had passed for in life. They would realise, deep down, that they, and whole nations along with them, are not really what they seem to be-and never can be.
curves hands seductive
Your road is everything that a road ought to be...and yet you will not stay in it half a mile, for the reason that little, seductive, mysterious roads are always branching out from it on either hand, and as these curve sharply also and hide what is beyond, you cannot resist the temptation to desert your own chosen path and explore them.
keeping-promises world body
Now he found out a new thing--namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.
moderation ifs discrete
If you must be indiscrete, be discrete in your indiscretion.
hilarious inspiration ironic
I once sent a dozen of my friends a telegram saying 'flee at once - all is discovered.' They all left town immediately.
equality perfect perfect-love
You cannot have all chiefs; you gotta have Indians too. Perfect love cannot be without equality. A friend to everybody and to nobody is the same thing. We are all alike, on the inside.
hilarious men more-money
Men are like bank accounts. The more money, the more interest they generate.
patriotism majority
...majority Patriotism is the customary Patriotism.
often-is people age
I am aware that I am very old now; but I am also aware that I have never been so young as I am now, in spirit, since I was fourteen and entertained Jim Wolf with the wasps. I am only able to perceive that I am old by a mental process; I am altogether unable to feel old in spirit. It is a pity, too, for my lapses from gravity must surely often be a reproach to me. When I am in the company of very young people I always feel that I am one of them, and they probably privately resent it.
sense-of-humor human-nature one-thing
A sense of humor is the one thing no one will admit to not having.
characteristics humans
There is not a single human characteristic that can be safely labeled as American.
somewhere-else advice household-chores
Have a place for everything and keep the thing somewhere else. This is not advice, it is merely custom.
sanity reason preserves
for business reasons, I must preserve the outward signs of sanity.