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Mark Twain Quotes


Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.


I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.


We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read.


Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.


Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.


An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before. An American is a person who does things because they haven't been done before.


A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.


If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.


I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know.


Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.


In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.


Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.


Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.


I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts.


It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.


A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.


Good breeding consists of concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.


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


I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't.


It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.


The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.


It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.


The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.


Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.


Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.


Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.


Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.


Familiarity breeds contempt - and children.


I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the things which were sacred to other people.


I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it.


The report of my death was an exaggeration.


By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's I mean.


Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.



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