The Works of Mark Twain Quotes

“There is no prophecy in our day but history. But history is a trustworthy prophet. History is always repeating itself, because conditions are always repeating themselves. Out of duplicated conditions history always gets a duplicate product.”
― Mark Twain, The Complete Works of Mark Twain

“There's many a way to win in this world, but none of them is worth much without good hard work back out of it.”
― Mark Twain, The Complete Works of Mark Twain

“I found that the nation had at first tried universal suffrage pure and simple, but had thrown that form aside because the result was not satisfactory. It had seemed to deliver all power into the hands of the ignorant and non-tax-paying classes; and of a necessity the responsible offices were filled from these classes also.”
― Mark Twain, The Complete Works of Mark Twain

“Joan, weeping, knelt and began to pray. For whom? Herself? Oh, no--for the King of France. Her voice rose sweet and clear, and penetrated all hearts with its passionate pathos. She never thought of his treacheries to her, she never thought of his desertion of her, she never remembered that it was because he was an ingrate that she was here to die a miserable death; she remembered only that he was her King, that she was his loyal and loving subject,”
― Mark Twain, The Complete Works of Mark Twain

“By the military usage of the time the ransom of a royal prince was 10,000 livres of gold, which is 61,125 francs--a fixed sum, you see. It must be accepted when offered; it could not be refused. Cauchon brought the offer of this very sum from the English--a royal prince's ransom for the poor little peasant-girl of Domremy. It shows in a striking way the English idea of her formidable importance. It was accepted. For that sum Joan of Arc, the Savior of France, was sold; sold to her enemies; to the enemies of her country; enemies who had lashed and thrashed and thumped and trounced France for a century and made holiday sport of it; enemies who had forgotten, years and years ago, what a Frenchman's face was like, so used were they to seeing nothing but his back; enemies whom she had whipped, whom she had cowed, whom she had taught to respect French valor, new-born in her nation by the breath of her spirit;”
― Mark Twain, The Complete Works of Mark Twain

“Sold to a French priest by a French prince, with the French King and the French nation standing thankless by and saying nothing.”
― Mark Twain, The Complete Works of Mark Twain

“Rouen was chosen as the scene of the trial. It was in the heart of the English power; its population had been under English dominion so many generations that they were hardly French now, save in language.”
― Mark Twain, The Complete Works of Mark Twain

“You have saved the crown. Speak--require--demand; and whatsoever grace you ask it shall be granted, though it make the kingdom poor to meet it." Now that was fine, that was royal. Joan was on her knees again straightway, and said: "Then, O gentle King, if out of your compassion you will speak the word, I pray you give commandment that my village, poor and hard pressed by reason of war, may have its taxes remitted." "It”
― Mark Twain, The Complete Works of Mark Twain

“Many death-sick nations have reached convalescence through a series of battles, a procession of battles, a weary tale of wasting conflicts stretching over years, but only one has reached it in a single day and by a single battle. That nation is France, and that battle Patay.”
― Mark Twain, The Complete Works of Mark Twain

“Judged by results, Patay's place is with the few supremely great and imposing battles that have been fought since the peoples of the world first resorted to arms for the settlement of their quarrels.”
― Mark Twain, The Complete Works of Mark Twain