Status Updates From Mark Twain

“When a man deliberately offends other folk, he invites sorrow; when he deliberately offends himself, he insures it.”

Mark Twain on being financially strapped:

“The lack of money is the root of all evil.”

Not wrong. 😂

“It never rains disagreeable people but it pours them.”

Mark Twain’s thoughts on his friend, Reverend Joseph Twitchell:
“You have the touch that heals, not lacerates.”

“What is the chief end of man? A. To get rich.
In what way? A. Dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must.”

Mark, sounds about right for these days.

Mark Twain on his short lived stint living in Washington DC:
“I believe the Prince of Darkness could start a branch [of] hell in the District of Columbia (if he has not already done it), and carry it on unimpeached by the Congress of the United States.”

A miner providing an introduction for Mark Twain to a crowd for a lecture:

“I don’t know anything about this man. At least I know only two things: one is he hasn’t been in the penitentiary, and the other is… I don’t know why.”

Mark Twain describing the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii):

“It is Sunday Land, the land of indolence and dreams, where the air is drowsy and lulls the spirit to repose and peace, and to forgetfulness of the labor and turmoil and weariness and anxiety of life.”

A Nevada senator on San Clemens: “I suppose he was the most lovable scamp and nuisance who ever blighted Nevada.”

Mark Twain “Three months of camp life on Lake Tahoe would restore an Egyptian mummy to his pristine vigor, and give him an appetite like an alligator. I do not mean the oldest and driest mummies, of course, but the fresher ones.”

Mark Twain on his residence in Nevada:

“Nevada Territory is fabulously rich in gold, silver, copper, lead, coal, iron, quicksilver, marble, granite, chalk, slate, plaster of Paris (gypsum), thieves, murderers, desperadoes, ladies, children, lawyers, Christians, gamblers, Indians, Chinamen, Spaniards, sharpers, cuyotes… preachers, poets, and jackass rabbits.”

Mark Twain’s critique on the Mormon Bible: “Chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle - keeping awake while he did it, at any rate.”

Mark Twain:
“The instant a person pledges himself not to drink, he feels the galling of the slavechain he has put upon himself; & if he be wise… he will go instantly and break that pledge.”

On leaving his small home town: “half the people we alive and the other half were dead. A stranger could not tell them apart.”

Mark Twain: “the conscience… can be trained to approve any wild thing you want it to approve if you begin its education early & stick to it.”

“The only profession that ever vied with piloting in Sam Clemens’s fantasy life was that of becoming a preacher, which seemed a sure way to forestall damnation. ‘It looked like a safe job,’ he confirmed. Another time he confessed about being a preacher that he lacked ‘the necessary stock in trade- I.e., religion’” 😂😂

Mark Twain: “There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable. It was not that Adam ate the apple for the apple’s sake, but because it was forbidden.”

“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”

Jane Clemens on her troublemaker of a son’s near drowning: “I guess there wasn’t much danger. People born to be hanged are safe in water.” 😂

Granddaughter: “Grandma, I believe you like cats better than babies.”

Grandma Jane Clemens, “when you’re tired of a cat you can put it down.”

😂😂 not wrong

Jane Clemens on her son, Sam Clemens aka Mark Twain, “I discount him ninety percent, the rest is pure gold.”