Mark Twain

“Tallustelin eteenpäin enkä noudattanut mitään erityistä suunnitelmaa, vaan luotin siihen, että Kaitselmus panisi oikeat sanat suuhuni, kun sellainen hetki koittaisi; sillä mä olin pannut merkille, että Kaitselmus pani mulle aina oikeat sanat suuhun, kunhan annoin sen puuhailla omin päin.”

“An honest politician is an oxymoron.”

“Total abstinence is so excellent a thing that it cannot be carried to too great an extent. In my passion for it I even carry it so far as to totally abstain from total abstinence itself.”

“I am only human, although I regret it.”

“I had been to school most all the time, and could spell, and read, and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live forever. I don't take no stock in mathematics, anyway.”

“The Moral Sense teaches us what is right, and how to avoid it--when unpopular.”

“It is better to be alone than unwelcome. - Eve”

“and so when I couldn't stand it no longer, I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied.”

“He had been drunk over in town, and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at. A body would a thought he was Adam, he was just all mud.”

“congress - that great, benevolent asylum for the helpless”

“I could not really complain, because he had only given me his word of honor as security; I ought to have required of him something substantial.”

“A man who goes around with a prophecy-gun ought never to get discouraged: if he will keep up his heart and fire at everything he sees, he is bound to hit something by and by.”

“My experience of men had long ago taught me that one of the surest ways of begetting an enemy was to do some stranger an act of kindness which should lay upon him the irritating sense of an obligation.”

“Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself.”

“Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round— more than a body could tell what to do with.”

“There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.”

“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; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to die for rags--that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it.”

“Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”

“The dream vocabulary shaves meanings finer and closer than do the world's daytime dictionaries.”

“The darling mispronunciations of childhood! - dear me, there's no music that can touch it; and how one grieves when it wastes away and dissolves into correctness, knowing it will never visit his bereaved ear again.”

“I've experienced a great deal of pain and suffering in my life ...... most of which has never happened.”

“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

“In Boston they ask, how much does he know? In New York, how much is he worth? In Philadelphia, who were his parents?”

“He was sunshine most always-I mean he made it seem like good weather.”

“But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time.”

“Nature has no originality--I mean, no large ability in the matter of inventing new things, new ideas, new stage effects. She has a superb and amazing and infinitely varied equipment of old ones, but she never adds to them. She repeats--repeats--repeats--repeats. Examine your memory and your experience; you will find it is true.”

“Držite se podalje od ljudi koji žele omalovažiti vaše ambicije. Sitne duše to rade svo vreme, a samo zaista veliki ljudi ulivaju vam osećaj da i vi možete postati veliki”

“Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship God, & over these ideals they dispute & cannot unite--but they all worship money.”

“Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.”

“Do the thing you fear the most and the death of fear is certain.”

“Klonite se ljudi koji će pokušati omalovažiti vaše ambicije. Mali ljudi čine takve stvari, dok veliki ljudi mogu učuniti da se osetite da i vi možate postati veliki”

“It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt”

“The joy of killing! the joy of seeing killing done - these are traits of the human race at large.”

“A brown spotted lady-bug climbed the dizzy height of a grass blade, and Tom bent down close to it and said, "Lady-bug, lady-bug, fly away home, your house is on fire, your children's alone," and she took wing and went off to see about it -- which did not surprise the boy, for he knew of old that this insect was credulous about conflagrations, and he had practised upon its simplicity more than once.”

“Tom felt that it was time to wake up; this sort of life might be romantic enough, in his blighted condition, but it was getting to have too little sentiment and too much distracting variety about it. So he thought over various plans for relief, and finally hit pon that of professing to be fond of Pain-killer. He asked for it so often that he became a nuisance, and his aunt ended by telling him to help himself and quit bothering her. If it had been Sid, she would have had no misgivings to alloy her delight; but since it was Tom, she watched the bottle clandestinely. She found that the medicine did really diminish, but it did not occur to her that the boy was mending the health of a crack in the sitting-room floor with it.One day Tom was in the act of dosing the crack when his aunt's yellow cat came along, purring, eying the teaspoon avariciously, and begging for a taste. Tom said:"Don't ask for it unless you want it, Peter."But Peter signified that he did want it."You better make sure."Peter was sure."Now you've asked for it, and I'll give it to you, because there ain't anything mean about me; but if you find you don't like it, you mustn't blame anybody but your own self."Peter was agreeable. So Tom pried his mouth open and poured down the Pain-killer. Peter sprang a couple of yards in the air, and then delivered a war-whoop and set off round and round the room, banging against furniture, upsetting flower-pots, and making general havoc. Next he rose on his hind feet and pranced around, in a frenzy of enjoyment, with his head over his shoulder and his voice proclaiming his unappeasable happiness. Then he went tearing around the house again spreading chaos and destruction in his path. Aunt Polly entered in time to see him throw a few double summersets, deliver a final mighty hurrah, and sail through the open window, carrying the rest of the flower-pots with him. The old lady stood petrified with astonishment, peering over her glasses; Tom lay on the floor expiring with laughter.”

“I have too much respect for the truth to drag it out on every trifling occasion.”

“all democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it”

“I once heard a grouty northern invalid say that a coconut tree might be poetical, possibly it was; but it looked like a feather-duster struck by lightning.”

“Then there is the tamarind. I thought tamarinds were made to eat, but that was probably not the idea. I ate several, and it seemed to me that they were rather sour that year. They pursed up my lips, till they resembled the stem-end of a tomato, and I had to take my sustenance through a quill for twenty-four hours. They sharpened my teeth till I could have shaved with them, and gave them a "wire edge" that I was afraid would stay; but a citizen said no, it will come off when the enamel does" - which was comforting, at any rate. I found, afterward, that only strangers eat tamarinds - but they only eat them once.”

“It was such ecstacy to dream, and dream - till you got a bite.A scorpion bite. Then the first duty was to get up out of the grass and kill the scorpion; and the next to bathe the bitten place with alcohol or brandy; and the next to resolve to keep out of the grass in the future. Then came an adjournment to the bedchamber and the pastime of writing up the day's journal with one hand and the destruction of mosquitoes with the other - a whole community of them at a slap. Then, observing an enemy approaching - a hairy tarantula on stilts - why not set the spittoon on him? It is done, and the projecting ends of his paws give a luminous idea of the magnitude of his reach. Then to bed and become a promenade for a centipede with forty-two legs on a side and every foot hot enough to burn a whole through a raw-hide. More soaking with alcohol, and a resolution to examine the bed before entering it, in future. Then wait, and suffer, till all the mosquitoes in the neighborhood have crawled in under the bar, then slip out quickly, shut them in and sleep peacefully on the floor till morning. Meantime, it is comforting to curse the tropics in occasional wakeful intervals.”

“I once sent a dozen of my friends a telegram saying 'flee at once - all is discovered.' They all left town immediately.”

“In our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.”

“Tom's army won a great victory, after a long and hard-fought battle. Then the dead were counted, prisoners exchanged, the terms of the next disagreement agreed upon, and the day for the necessary battle appointed; after which the armies fell into line and marched away, and Tom turned homeward alone.”

“Then he skipped out, and saw Sid just starting up the outside stairway that led to the back rooms on the second floor. Clods were handy and the air was full of them in a twinkling. They raged around Sid like a hail-storm; and before Aunt Polly could collect her surprised faculties and sally to the rescue, six or seven clods had taken personal effect, and Tom was over the fence and gone. There was a gate, but as a general thing he was too crowded for time to make use of it. His soul was at peace, now that he had settled with Sid for calling attention to his black thread and getting him into trouble.”

“Now, children, I want you all to sit up just as straight and pretty as you can and give me all your attention for a minute or two. There - that is it. That is the way good little boys and girls should do. I see one little girl who is looking out of the window - I am afraid she thinks I am out there somewhere - perhaps up in one of the trees making a speech to the little birds. [Applausive titter.]”

“Tom counted the pages of the sermon; after church he always knew how many pages there had been, but he seldom knew anything else about the discourse.”

“Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.”

“New Year’s Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”

“‎TOM!"No answer."TOM!"No answer."What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!"No answer.The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked THROUGH them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service-- she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well.”

“Дойдох с Халеевата комета през 1835 г. Следващата година тя идва отново и очаквам да си отида с нея. Ще бъде най-голямото разочарование в живота ми, ако не си отида с Халеевата комета. Всевишния без съмнение е казал: "Ето две необясними явления; дойдоха заедно, трябва и да си отидат заедно". ”