Mark Twain: Man (page 2)

“There's one way to find out if a man is honest: ask him; if he says yes, you know he's crooked.”

“What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey.”

“I thoroughly disapprove of duels. I consider them unwise and I know they are dangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me now I would go to that man and take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet retired spot and kill him.”

“The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.”

“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”

“The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it he knows too little.”

“Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.”

“Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.”

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.”

“When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.”

“A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.”

“A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.”

“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs one step at a time.”

“Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.”

“If man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.”

“Give a man a reputation as an early riser and he can sleep 'til noon.”

“All I care to know about a man is that he is a human being… he can't be any worse.”

“Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.”

“The average man don't like trouble and danger.”