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
people judging house
No one can tell me what is a good cigar - for me. I am the only judge. People who claim to know say that I smoke the worst cigars in the world. They bring their own cigars when they come to my house.
business judging achievement
When we do not know a person - and also when we do - we have to judge his size by the size and nature of his achievements, as compared with the achievements of others in his special line of business - there is no other way.
real men judging
No one can tell me what is a good cigar--for me. I am the only judge... There are no standards--no real standards. Each man's preference is the only standard for him, the only one which he can accept, the only one which can command him.
character men judging
To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.
country men judging
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.
eye heart judging
The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn't indicate or promise, and which the other kind of eye couldn't detect.
complaint complaints-and-complaining compliment courteous gentle ought precede resentment
I think a compliment ought to always precede a complaint, where one is possible, because it softens resentment and insures for the complaint a courteous and gentle reception.
awake refrain rule smoke
It has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain when awake
number remember
It isn't so astonishing the number of things that I can remember, as the number of things that I can remember that aren't so.
complete failure judgment life likely lived secret
It is not likely that any complete life has ever been lived which was not a failure in the secret judgment of the person that lived it
appearance last since sister stated ugliest visited week wish withdraw woman
Last week I stated that this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister and now wish to withdraw that statement.
fact past restored solitary worth
I said there was but one solitary thing about the past worth remembering and that was the fact that it is past - and can't be restored
benefit ourselves whose
We do no benevolences whose first benefit is not for ourselves
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.