“The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Source: Pudd'nhead Wilson and Other Tales
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@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
"What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us?" http://www.mtwain.com/What_Paul_Bourget_Thinks_of_Us/0.html, in How to Tell a Story and Other Essays (1897)
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 3 (2015), p. 130
Context: I have not read Nietzsche or Ibsen, nor any other philosopher, and have not needed to do it, and have not desired to do it; I have gone to the fountain-head for information—that is to say, to the human race. Every man is in his own person the whole human race, with not a detail lacking. I am the whole human race without a detail lacking; I have studied the human race with diligence and strong interest all these years in my own person; in myself I find in big or little proportion every quality and every defect that is findable in the mass of the race. I knew I should not find in any philosophy a single thought which had not passed through my own head, nor a single thought which had not passed the heads of millions and millions of men before I was born; I knew I should not find a single original thought in any philosophy, and I knew I could not furnish one to the world myself, if I had five centuries to invent it in. Nietzsche published his book, and was at once pronounced crazy by the world—by a world which included tens of thousands of bright, sane men who believed exactly as Nietzsche believed, but concealed the fact, and scoffed at Nietzsche. What a coward every man is! and how surely he will find it out if he will just let other people alone and sit down and examine himself. The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.
“I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts.”
Mark Twain book What Is Man?
Source: What Is Man?
“Do the thing you fear the most and the death of fear is certain.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
“A cat is more intelligent than people believe, and can be taught any crime.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
“Learning softeneth the heart and breedeth gentleness and charity.”
Mark Twain book The Prince and the Pauper
Source: The Prince and the Pauper
“It's not as bad as it sounds.”
Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Variant: 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.
Source: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Ch. 22.
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Source: Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings
“To place man properly at the present time, he stands somewhere between the angels and the French.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist