The Quotable Mark Twain
Kate and I were talking about making a trip to Hannibal, MO to see his birth place and visit the museums and tourist stuff. She was telling me they have actors that preform his famous speeches. Kate's never been, and I'd hate to move before going.
I love Twain's wit and humor right along with his pessimism and melancholy. I like to think intellect and depression are commonly found together.
With Twain on the brain, I searched for some quotes from the ever wise author. I found more than I expected at Twain Quotes. There are countless quotes organized by topic. You've got to check it out.
Without further ado, here are 13 fun quotes from an American original:
1. I do not believe I could learn to like her except on a raft at sea with no other provisions in sight.
- Mark Twain in Eruption
2. Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain, a Biography
3. Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass.
- Notebook, 1898
4. I never saw an author who was aware that there is any dimensional difference between a fact and a surmise.
- quoted in My Father Mark Twain, by Clara Clemen
5. Classic--a book which people praise and don't read.
- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar
6.
Only one thing is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.
- Mark Twain's Notebook, 1902-1903
7. I have criticized absent people so often, and then discovered, to my humiliation, that I was talking with their relatives, that I have grown superstitious about that sort of thing and dropped it.
- "Mental Telegraphy"
8. Have a place for everything and keep the thing somewhere else; this is not advice, it is merely custom.
- Notebook, 1898
9. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it--namely, in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
10. Oh, that worthless, worthless book, that timid book, that shifty book, that uncertain book, that time-serving book, that exasperating book, that unspeakable book, the Unlimited Dictionary! that book with but one object in life: to get in more and shadings of the words than its competitors. With the result that nearly every time it gets done shading a good old useful word it means everything general and nothing in particular.
- "Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes"
11. Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
- Mark Twain's Notebook, 1898
12. Shut the door. Not that it lets in the cold but that it lets out the coziness.
- Notebook, 1898
13. ...when all is said and done, the one sole condition that makes spiritual happiness and preserves it is the absence of doubt.
- Mark Twain in Eruption
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Most of those were new to me (except the man/jackass one). Thanks for such an entertaining TT.
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Welcome. I tried to pick one's I hadn't seen before, but the jackass one was too good to pass up
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Oh, too funny! I can especially relate to #8.
I have two TT13s this week:
Better decluttering through TT13
http://www.ravensroads.com/index.php/tt13-decluttering/
http://www.ravensrv.com/thursday-thirteen-4-calistoga-california-for-rvers/
Calistoga, California for RVers
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Thanks for stopping by. You are certainly a prolific blogger to post twice for Thursday 13.
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