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Mark Twain Biography | Inspiration Quotations | Motivation Quotes

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Mark Twain Motivational Quotations:
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”
“My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.”
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
- “You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
- “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
“In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.”
“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”
“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
“It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.”
“Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.”
“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.”
“All generalizations are false, including this one.”
“Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”
“The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.”
“Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.”
“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.”
“Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.”
“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
“When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.”
“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
“When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.”
“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 rather not.”
“Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”
“It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.”
“Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.”
“Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”
“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times.”
“Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”
“Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.”
“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.”
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”
“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”
“Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.”
“All emotion is involuntary when genuine.”
“Everything has its limit - iron ore cannot be educated into gold.”
“Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”
“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”
“There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.”
“Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”
“I make it a rule never to smoke while I'm sleeping.”
“I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places.”
“Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.”
“Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”
“When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”
“I never smoke to excess - that is, I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time.”
“Don't let schooling interfere with your education.”
“Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.”
“There are lies, damned lies and statistics.”
“There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.”
“Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.”
“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”
“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
“The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.”
“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”
“Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to.”
“Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.”
“It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.”
“All right, then, I'll go to hell.”
“Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.”
“There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress.”
“Optimist: day dreamer more elegantly spelled.”
“If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but deteriorate the cat.”
“The lack of money is the root of all evil.”
“Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.”
“When in doubt tell the truth.”
“A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.”
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
“The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives.”
“The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.”
“It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”
“Man was made at the end of the week's work, when God was tired.”
“When red-haired people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.”
“Buy land, they're not making it anymore.”
“Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.”
“'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read.”
“Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.”
“But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?”
“The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.”
“Golf is a good walk spoiled.”
“I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.”
“As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake.”
“I can live for two months on a good compliment.”
“Better a broken promise than none at all.”
“Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.”
“Let us endeavor so to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”
“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - 'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”
“I never let schooling interfere with my education.”
“Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”
“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - 'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”
“By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.”
“What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.”
“The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.”
“It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.”
“Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”
“Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish.”
“Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man's, I mean.”
“The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.”
“We Americans... bear the ark of liberties of the world.”
“Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish.”
“I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.”
“When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.”
“It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.”
“George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.”
"Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
“The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.”
“The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.”
“The educated Southerner has no use for an 'r', except at the beginning of a word.”
“Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.”
“Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.”
“Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.”
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