The collection / 580 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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580 results · Page 3 of 25Play this collection ▷

01c. 1872 AD

There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous andshallow: Yet it was the schoolboy who said 'Faith is believing what youknow ain't so'.

Mark Twain / quote

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02c. 1872 AD

It usually takes me two or three days to prepare an impromptu speech.

Mark Twain / quote

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03c. 1872 AD

Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.

Mark Twain / quote

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04c. 1872 AD

In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.

Mark Twain / quote

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05c. 1872 AD

I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I’m not feeling so well myself.

Mark Twain / quote

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06c. 1872 AD

If we would learn what the human race really is at bottom, we need only observe it in election times.

Mark Twain / quote

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07c. 1872 AD

Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.

Mark Twain / quote

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08c. 1872 AD

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again and that is well but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

Mark Twain / quote

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09c. 1872 AD

I take my only exercise acting as a pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercise regularly.

Mark Twain / quote

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10c. 1872 AD

The source of all humor is not laughter, but sorrow.

Mark Twain / quote

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11c. 1872 AD

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

Mark Twain / quote

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12c. 1872 AD

I have lived a long life and had many troubles, most of which never happened

Mark Twain / quote

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13c. 1872 AD

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

Mark Twain / quote

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14c. 1872 AD

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Mark Twain / quote

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15c. 1872 AD

Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.

Mark Twain / quote

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16c. 1872 AD

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.

Mark Twain / quote

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17c. 1872 AD

The Bible has noble poetry in it... and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies.

Mark Twain / quote

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18c. 1872 AD

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

Mark Twain / quote

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19c. 1872 AD

Herodotus says, "Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all: the conscientious historian will correct these defects.

Mark Twain / quote

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20c. 1872 AD

When ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles, but in showers.

Mark Twain / quote

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21c. 1872 AD

If a cat sits on a hot stove, that cat won't sit on a hot stove again. That cat won't sit on a cold stove either. That cat just don't like stoves.

Mark Twain / quote

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22c. 1872 AD

This nation is like all the others that have been spewed upon the earth--ready to shout for any cause that will tickle its vanity or fill its pocket. What a hell of a heaven it will be when they get all these hypocrites assembled there!- Letter to J. H. Twichell, 1/29/1901

Mark Twain / quote

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23c. 1872 AD

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

Mark Twain / quote

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24c. 1872 AD

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).

Mark Twain / quote

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