Quotes from Mark Twain

The Moral Sense teaches us what is right, and how to avoid it--when unpopular.

Spare the rod and spile the child, as the Good Book says.

There is no such thing as the Queen's English. The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares!

Had I never loved, I never would have been unhappy; but I turn to Him who can save, and if His wisdom does not will my expected union, I know He will give me strength to bear my lot.

The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

How blind and unreasoning and arbitrary are some of the laws of nature - the most of them, in fact!

Presently a serpent sought them out privately, and came to them walking upright, which was the way of serpents in those days. The serpent said the forbidden fruit would store their vacant minds with knowledge. So they ate it, which was quite natural, for man is so made that he eagerly wants to know; whereas the priest, like God, whose imitator and representative he is, has made it his business from the beginning to keep him from knowing any useful thing.

The Church still prizes the Moral Sense as man's noblest asset today, although the Church knows God had a distinctly poor opinion of it and did what he could in his clumsy way to keep his happy Children of the Garden from acquiring it.

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

You know my present way of life. Can you suggest any additions to it, in the way of crime, that will reasonably insure my going to some other place.

When its steamboat time you steamboat.

the king he allowed he would drop over to t'other village without any plan, but just trust in Providence to lead him the profitable way - meaning the devil, I reckon.