“Humor is tragedy plus time.” — Mark Twain
“We had an abundance of mangoes, papaias and bananas here, but the pride of the islands, the most delicious fruit known to men, cherimoya, was not in season. It has a soft pulp, like a pawpaw, and is eaten with a spoon.” — Mark Twain
“O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain;.” — Mark Twain
“Cold! If the thermometer had been an inch longer we’d all have frozen to death!” — Mark Twain
“In the small town of Hannibal, Missouri, when I was a boy, everybody was poor, but didn’t know it; and everybody was comfortable and did know it.” — Mark Twain
“It’s awful undermining to the intellect, German is; you want to take it in small doses, or first you know your brains all run together, and you feel them flapping around in your head same as so much drawn butter.” — Mark Twain
“My land, the power of training! Of influence! Of education! It can bring a body up to believe anything.” — Mark Twain
“The spirit of wrath – not the words – is the sin; and the spirit of wrath is cursing. We begin to swear before we can talk.” — Mark Twain
“The southerner talks music.” — Mark Twain
“At noon I observed a bevy of nude young native women bathing in the sea, and I went and sat down on there clothes to keep them from being stolen.” — Mark Twain
“Where a blood relation sobs, an intimate friend should choke up, a distant acquaintance should sigh, a stranger should merely fumble sympathetically with his handkerchief.” — Mark Twain
“But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of therest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.” — Mark Twain
“We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again and that is well but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.” — Mark Twain
“Tell the truth or trump-but get the trick.” — Mark Twain
“The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice – and always has been.” — Mark Twain
“But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time.” — Mark Twain
“We often feel sad in the presence of music without words; and often more than that in the presence of music without music.” — Mark Twain
“Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.” — Mark Twain
“Diligence is a good thing, but taking things easy is much more restful.” — Mark Twain
“A newspaper is not just for reporting the news as it is, but to make people mad enough to do something about it.” — Mark Twain
“Switzerland would me a mighty big place if it were ironed flat.” — Mark Twain
“Thanksgiving day. Let us all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks now, but the turkeys.” — Mark Twain
“Take your mind out every now and then and dance on it. It is getting all caked up.” — Mark Twain
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear-not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a loose application of the word. Consider the flea! – incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage.” — Mark Twain
“Not until you become a stranger to yourself will you be able to make acquaintance with the Friend.” — Mark Twain
“A sound heart is a surer guide than an ill-trained conscience.” — Mark Twain
“The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” — Mark Twain
“Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.” — Mark Twain
“When one has tasted watermelons, one knows what angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took; we know it because she repented.” — Mark Twain
“It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with Chicago-she outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make them. She is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you saw when you passed through the last time.” — Mark Twain
“Wherefore being all of one mind, we do highly resolve that government of the grafted by the grafter for the grafter shall not perish from the earth.” — Mark Twain
“Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwcp is pronounced Jackson.” — Mark Twain
“Give a man a reputation as an early riser and he can sleep ’til noon.” — Mark Twain
“You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,’ but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by a Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.” — Mark Twain
“Always obey your parents. When they are present. This is the best policy in the long run. Because if you don’t, they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgment.” — Mark Twain
“My father was a Saint Bernard, my mother was a Collie, but I am a Presbyterian.” — Mark Twain
“Geological time is not money.” — Mark Twain