Lines from Mark Twain

BOOKS 

they come from Moments with Mark Twain / collection of selected writings

compiled by friend and biographer Albert Bigelow Paine / published after Twain's death in 1910 / quotes from many texts 

my highlights follow 

Money can’t save your infinitesimal soul. All the use that money can be put to is to purchase comfort and enjoyment in this life;

... you people who have no petty vices are never known to give away a cent.

At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition of a man to keep a faithful record of his performances,

Three months of camp life on Lake Tahoe would restore an Egyptian mummy to his pristine vigor, and give him an appetite like an alligator.

So I am a Yankee of the Yankees—and practical, yes, and nearly barren of sentiment, I suppose—or poetry, in other words.

When in doubt, tell the truth.

Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead.

“Classic.” A book which people praise and don’t read.

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.

The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

I have traveled more than any one else, and I have noticed that even the angels speak English with an accent.

...the trouble with an American paper is that it has no discrimination; it rakes the whole earth for blood and garbage and the result is that you are daily overfed and suffer a surfeit.

Death—the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all—the soiled and the pure—the rich and the poor—the loved and the unloved.

[ CONTEXT ] = books / quotes / Mark Twain / American authors