Mark Twain Quotes

“Seven-tenths of the free population of the country were of just their class and degree: small “independent” farmers, artisans, etc.; which is to say, they were the nation, the actual Nation; they were about all of it that was useful, or worth saving, or really respect-worthy, and to subtract them would have been to subtract the Nation and leave behind some dregs, some refuse, in the shape of a king, nobility and gentry, idle, unproductive, acquainted mainly with the arts of wasting and destroying, and of no sort of use or value in any rationally constructed world.”
― Mark Twain, Mark Twain: The Complete Novels

“When the spring morning dawned, the form still sat there, the elbows resting upon the table and the face upon the hands. All day long the figure sat there, the sunshine enriching its costly raiment and flashing from its jewels; twilight came, and presently the stars, but still the figure remained; the moon found it there still, and framed the picture with the shadow of the window sash, and flooded it with mellow light; by and by the darkness swallowed it up, and later the gray dawn revealed it again; the new day grew toward its prime, and still the forlorn presence was undisturbed.”
― Mark Twain, Mark Twain: The Complete Novels

“toothache”
― Mark Twain, Mark Twain: The Complete Novels

“Blue Laws of”
― Mark Twain, Complete Novels

“Tom Canty, splendidly arrayed, mounted a prancing war-steed,”
― Mark Twain, Complete Novels

“pertinacity”
― Mark Twain, Mark Twain: The Complete Novels

“But how should I know whether they were boys or girls?” “Goodness sakes, mars Clay, don’t de Good Book say? ‘Sides, don’t it call ‘em de HE-brew chil’en? If dey was gals wouldn’t dey be de SHE-brew chil’en? Some people dat kin read don’t ‘pear to take no notice when dey do read.”
― Mark Twain, Mark Twain: The Complete Novels

“berth in a storm, for they were familiar with marksmanship and doubted if the lightning could hit that small stick at a distance of a mile and a half”
― Mark Twain, Mark Twain: The Complete Novels

“Say,” said Ham Sandwich,”
― Mark Twain, Mark Twain: The Complete Novels

“discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.”
― Mark Twain, Mark Twain: The Complete Novels

“Old war-worn captains are hard-headed, practical men. They do not easily believe in the ability of ignorant children to plan campaigns and command armies. No general that ever lived could have taken Joan seriously (militarily) before she raised the siege of Orleans and followed it with the great campaign of the Loire.”
― Mark Twain, Mark Twain: The Complete Novels

“She was a subscriber for all the “Health” periodicals and phrenological frauds; and the solemn ignorance they were inflated with was breath to her nostrils. All the “rot” they contained about ventilation, and how to go to bed, and how to get up, and what to eat, and what to drink, and how much exercise to take, and what frame of mind to keep one’s self in, and what sort of clothing to wear, was all gospel to her, and she never observed that her health-journals of the current month customarily upset everything they had recommended the month before. She was as simple-hearted and honest as the day was long, and so she was an easy victim.”
― Mark Twain, Mark Twain: The Complete Novels

“You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one’s country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to;”
― Mark Twain, Mark Twain: The Complete Novels

“hookey,”
― Mark Twain, Mark Twain: The Complete Novels

“When I am king, they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books; for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved, and the heart. I will keep this diligently in my remembrance, that this day’s lesson be not lost upon me, and my people suffer thereby; for learning softeneth the heart and breedeth gentleness and charity.”
― Mark Twain, Mark Twain: The Complete Novels

“conviction that any Established Church is an established crime, an established slave-pen, I had no scruples, but was willing to assail it in any way or with any weapon that promised to hurt it.”
― Mark Twain, Mark Twain: The Complete Novels

“It was the cool gray dawn, and there was a delicious sense of repose and peace in the deep pervading calm and silence of the woods. Not a leaf stirred; not a sound obtruded upon great Nature’s meditation. Beaded dewdrops stood upon the leaves and grasses. A white layer of ashes covered the fire, and a thin blue breath of smoke rose straight into the air. Joe and Huck still slept.”
― Mark Twain, Mark Twain: The Complete Novels