xy

@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023

Favourite quotes (21448)

“One must travel, to learn. Every day, now, old Scriptural phrases that never possessed any significance for me before, take to themselves a meaning.”

Mark Twain book The Innocents Abroad

Source: The Innocents Abroad

“Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings
Source: Mark Twain's Notebook (1935), p. 381

“If you don't like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“In a museum in Havana, there are two skulls of Christopher Columbus, one when he was a boy and one when he was a man”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Don't go around thinking the world owes you a living. It was here first.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Misattributed <br class="br">Variant: Don’t believe the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. <br class="br">Source: Often attributed to Twain, but sourced to Robert J. Burdette, Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/06/06/world-owes/

“To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), Ch. 21
Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Speech (23 September 1907)

“Huck was always willing to take a hand in any enterprise that offered entertainment and required no capital, for he had a troublesome super-abundance of that sort of time which ismoney.”

Mark Twain book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Source: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.”

Mark Twain book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Source: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Ch. 2

“Satan hasn't a single salaried helper; the Opposition employs a million.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the things which were sacred to other people.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“It’s not the good that die young, it’s the lucky.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“He says every man is a moon and has a side which he turns toward nobody: you have to slip around behind if you want to see it.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

The Refuge of the Derelicts (unpublished manuscript written 1905–1906) <br class="br">Source: Google Books link https://books.google.com/books?id=uLfR7-ETm0MC&pg=PA326&dq=%22every+man+is+a+moon%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIn_iGm83gyAIVTedjCh0LwAap#v=onepage&q&f=false

“Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

p. 114 http://books.google.com/books?id=qCDpAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Fame+is+a+vapor+popularity+an+accident+the+only+earthly+certainty+is+oblivion%22&pg=PA114#v=onepage <br class="br">Mark Twain's Notebook (1935)

“If you want me to give you a two-hour presentation, I am ready today. If you want only a five-minute speech, it will take me two weeks to prepare.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Everything has its limit - iron ore cannot be educated into gold.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.”

Mark Twain book Pudd'nhead Wilson

Variant: December is the toughest month of the year. Others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, October, August, and February.
Source: Pudd'nhead Wilson

“…I was born lazy. I am no lazier now than I was forty years ago, but that is because I reached the limit forty years ago. You can't go beyond possibility.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 2 (2013), p. 115

“Choosing not to read is like closing an open door to paradise”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist