by Curt Kovener
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was an author, humorist, lecturer and skilled orator, observer on the American life and (horrors!) a newspaper reporter whose is better known by his pen name Mark Twain which he took from the riverboat jargon meaning 12 feet of water.
Read and learn from his wisdom…
•Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too can become great.
•There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.
•In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.
•It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is not distinctly American criminal class except Congress.
•It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
•Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
•Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.
•Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
•Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
•Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
•The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
•The human race has one really effective weapon and that is laughter.
•The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.
•Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.
•Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
•He had no principles and was delightful company.
•Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
•The proverb says that Providence protects children and idiots. This is really true. I know it because I have tested it.
•When I was younger I could remember anything—whether it had happened or not.
•He had the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.
•Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing: it was here first.
•Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
¶When I was a boy on the Mississippi River there was a proposition in a township there to discontinue public schools because they were too expensive. An old farmer spoke up and said if they skipped the schools they would not save anything because every time a school was closed a jail had to be built.
•Honesty is the best policy—when there is money in it.
•For business reasons, I must preserve the outward signs of sanity.
•If a man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.
•A man with a new idea is a fool—until the idea succeeds.
•Concerning the difference between man and the donkey: some observers hold that there isn’t any, but this wrongs the donkey.
•Always acknowledge a fault frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you opportunity to commit more.
•Man started out a little lower than the angels and he’s been going a little lower ever since.
•If a person offends you and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures; simply watch for you chance and hit him with a brick.
•Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.
•It used to be a good hotel, but that means nothing—I used to be a good boy.
•When I am king, people shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is of little worth where the mind is starved.
•The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are in the right.
•God puts something good and lovable in every man His hands create.
•There’s a good spot tucked away somewhere in everybody, but you’ll be a long time finding it in some people.
•Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
•Never waste a lie; you never know when you may need it. And never tell a lie—except for practice.
•In all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
•In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.
•On morals, I’d rather teach them than practice them any day.
•Sometimes I feel like a stalk of corn left stand all alone in a field.
•Anger is an acid than can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
•It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
•Wisdom teaches us that none but birds should go out early and that not even birds should do it unless they are out of worms.