Rachel Wheeler-McAnally’s Reviews > Mark Twain > Status Update

“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.”

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.”