The collection / 580 fragments

The living archive

Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

SearchTypeTopicEraCulture / collection labelCountry attributionTraditionOrder

Author

Leave empty for every voice. Browse all authors ↗

Reset

Culture labels and country attributions follow the source collections; earliest origins may be unknown.

580 results · Page 15 of 25Play this collection ▷

01c. 1872 AD

If man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

02c. 1872 AD

It was a dreadful thing to see. Humans beings can be awful cruel to one another.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

03c. 1872 AD

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.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

04c. 1872 AD

Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

05c. 1872 AD

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

06c. 1872 AD

But old fools is the biggest fools there is.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

07c. 1872 AD

October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

08c. 1872 AD

An honest man in politics shines more there than he would elsewhere.- A Tramp Abroad

Mark Twain / quote

↗

09c. 1872 AD

An honest politician is an oxymoron.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

10c. 1872 AD

He would be a consul no doubt by and by, at some foreign port, of the language of which he was ignorant; though if ignorance of language were a qualification he might have been a consul at home.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

11c. 1872 AD

An oyster has hardly any more reasoning power than a scientist has; and so it it is reasonably certain that this one jumped to the conclusion that the nineteen million years was a preparation for him; but that would be just like an oyster, which is the most conceited animal there is, except man. And anyway, this one could not know, at that early date, that he was only an incident in a scheme, and that there was some more in the scheme yet.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

12c. 1872 AD

Man is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight

Mark Twain / quote

↗

13c. 1872 AD

Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

14c. 1872 AD

He had had much experience of physicians, and said 'the only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd druther not'.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

15c. 1872 AD

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns a lesson he can learn in no other way.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

16c. 1872 AD

At the beginning of that interval a type-machine was a curiosity. The person who owned one was a curiosity, too. But now it is the other way about: the person who doesn't own one is a curiosity.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

17c. 1872 AD

Every one knew he could foretell wars and famines, though that was not so hard, for there was always a war, and generally a famine somewhere.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

18c. 1872 AD

You know that kind of quiver that trembles around through you when you are seeing something so strange and enchanting and wonderful that it is just a fearful joy to be alive and look at it; and you know how you gaze, and your lips turn dry and your breath comes short, but you wouldn't be anywhere but there, not for the world.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

19c. 1872 AD

When they came it was as if the lord of the world had arrived, and had brought all the glories of its kingdoms along; and when they went they left a calm behind which was like the deep sleep which follows an orgy.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

20c. 1872 AD

It made one mad, for pleasure; and we could not take our eyes from him, and the looks that went out of our eyes came from our hearts, and their dumb speech was worship.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

21c. 1872 AD

Yes, I am of old family, and not illiterate. I am a fossil." "A which?" "Fossil. The first horses were fossils. They date back two million years.

Mark Twain / quote

↗

22c. 1872 AD

Ah, Antonio, it IS the noblest sport that ever was. I would give a year of my life to see it. Is the bull always killed?" "Yes. Sometimes a bull is timid, finding himself in so strange a place, and he stands trembling, or tries to retreat. Then everybody despises him for his cowardice and wants him punished and made ridiculous; so they hough him from behind, and it is the funniest thing in the world to see him hobbling around on his severed legs; the whole vast house goes into hurricanes of laughter over it; I have laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks to see it. When he has furnished...

Mark Twain / quote

↗

23c. 1872 AD

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up. ~Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad

Mark Twain / quote

↗

24c. 1872 AD

The writing begins when you've finished. Only then do you know what you're trying to say.

Mark Twain / quote

↗