Mark Twain

After searching for a particular Mark Twain quote (see previous blog) I read through several more of his quotations and have discovered that Mark Twain was a genius. I knew that he was a wonderful writer (I loved "Tom Sawyer"), but had never really read some of the quotes he has. They are magnificent! He has such wit and intelligence, that indeed, I think he may be a god. It was like being a parched and dying man in the desert suddenly finding a wealth of water he hadn't noticed before. That is just how I feel now, as if I am suddenly full of fresh water that I had not known was in existence.

My solution to this? I'm going to borrow a bunch of Mark Twain books. And I'm going to post several quotes that I found by this remarkable and wonderful man, who had gone quite under-appreciated by me. I'm sorry Mark Twain, I owe you a cookie! Also, I'm thinking of making him a deity. We need a religion based on Mark Twain's words. We should call it Twainism!

"I would much prefer to suffer from the clean incision of an honest lancet than from a sweetened poison."

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

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

"In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them." (I agree completely!)

"But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?" (This is something I used to worry about as a child. I never understood why we weren't supposed to pray for Satan, when the Bible says that we should pray for our enemies. Not only that, but couldn't Satan be saved? He was an angel once? But then you get into the "unforgivable sin", which who even understands what that is?)

"Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been."

"You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?" (Funny thing, I know exactly where almost all these references are in the Bible)

"I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."

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

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

"Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination."

"Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option."

"Life is short, Break the Rules.
Forgive quickly, Kiss SLOWLY.
Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably
And never regret ANYTHING
That makes you smile." (did not know that Mark Twain said this, but I have always appreciated this bit of wisdom.)

"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."

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."

"I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone. -Letter to Joseph Twichell, 9/13/1898" (I'm not entirely sure why Mr. Twain didn't like Jane Austen, but he didn't like her much because he talks about her a lot!)

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."

"Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see."

"The most interesting information come from children, for they tell all they know and then stop."

"When angry, count four. When very angry, swear."

"I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead."

"Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."

"If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much." (Have to love a man that appreciates cats!)

"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained."

"Out of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most."

"Denial is much more then an Egyptian River."

"While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats."

"We are all stupid, just on different subjects"

"It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare."

"There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he less savage than the other savages."

"There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy."

"Why waste your money looking up your family tree? Just go into politics and your opponent will do it for you." (I'm thinking about all this stupidity over Obama's birth certificate!)

"If we were supposed to talk more than listen we would have been given two mouths and one ear."

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

"There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable."

"My books are water; those of the great geniuses are wine.(Fortunately) Everybody drinks water."

"Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured."

"Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often."

"The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause."

"We need not worry so much about what man descends from; it's what he descends to that shames the human race." (All the ridiculous people who run their mouths about things they don't even know or understand, I am looking at you right now!)

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

"Golf is a good walk spoiled." (Sorry to everyone that actually enjoys golfing!)

"Last week I stated that this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister and now wish to withdraw that statement."

"Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."

"The Rumors of my Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated."

"If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be – a Christian." (Very true!)

"Unconsciously we all have a standard by which we measure other men, and if we examine closely we find that this standard is a very simple one, and is this: we admire them, we envy them, for great qualities we ourselves lack. Hero worship consists in just that. Our heroes are men who do things which we recognize, with regret, and sometimes with a secret shame, that we cannot do. We find not much in ourselves to admire, we are always privately wanting to be like somebody else. If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes."

"Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day." (YUCK!)

"Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired."

"We may not pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents."

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"

"Don't wake up a woman in love. Let her dream, so that she does not weep when she returns to her bitter reality"

"I know the look of an apple that is roasting and sizzling on the hearth on a winter's evening, and I know the comfort that comes of eating it hot, along with some sugar and a drench of cream... I know how the nuts taken in conjunction with winter apples, cider, and doughnuts, make old people's tales and old jokes sound fresh and crisp and enchanting."

"A half-truth is the most cowardly of lies."

"The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopt."

"Peace by persuasion has a pleasant sound, but I think we should not be able to work it. We should have to tame the human race first, and history seems to show that that cannot be done."