Mark Twain on Common Sense

Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America?s Most-Revered Humorist

Mark Twain, Stephen Brennan

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781628737998
• eBook ISBN: 9781629140780
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

Revered as one of America's greatest humorists and author of the "Great American Novel" ( The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ), the words of Samuel Langhorne Clemens—more commonly known as Mark Twain—resonate as strongly today as they did when he wrote them more than a century ago. A close friend of Nikola Tesla and heralded by William Faulkner as "the father of American literature, " Twain's wit, wisdom, and influence continues through the present day.Printer, typesetter, steamboat pilot, miner, reporter, journalist, author, inventor, humorist, investor, publisher, lecturer—Mark Twain was known as many things during his lifetime and has had at least as many titles thrust upon him since this death, but perhaps what he is best known for is being a source of good old-fashioned common sense. Whatever the topic—whether science and technology, life and love, history and culture, travel and exploration, civil rights and human rights, labor and politics, or ethics and religion—Twain had much to say and many ways to say it. Here, culled from his greatest novels, speeches, letters, conversations, and lectures is the best wisdom and advice—humorous, sardonic, and insightful as always.

HIMSELF

I was born modest, but it wore off.

My books are water; those of the great geniuses are wine. Everybody drinks water.

I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.

I never take any exercise except sleeping and resting.

I respect a man who knows how to spell a word more than one way.

I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can’t find anybody who can tell me what they want.

Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.

I am a border ruffian from the State of Missouri, I am a Connecticut Yankee by adoption, In me you have Missouri morals, Connecticut culture; this gentlemen, is the combination which makes the perfect man.

I am prepared to meet anyone, but whether anyone is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

I thoroughly believe that any man who’s got anything worthwhile to say will be heard if he only says it often enough.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said, “I don’t know.”

There has been much tragedy in my life: at least half of it actually happened.

I, Mark Twain being of sound mind, have spent everything.

The Public is merely a multiplied “me.”

I was sorry to have my name mentioned among the great authors because they have a sad habit of dying off.

I would much rather have my ignorance than another man’s knowledge, because I have so much of it.

I know all those people. I have friendly, social, and criminal relations with the whole lot of them.

I could have become a soldier if I had waited; I knew more about retreating than the man who invented retreating.

I am not the editor of a newspaper and shall always try to do right and be good so that God will not make me one.

Thrusting my nose firmly between his teeth, I threw him heavily to the ground on top of me.

I cannot keep from talking, even at the risk of being instructive.

I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

I have been an author for 22 years and an ass for 55.

It takes me a long time to lose my temper, but once lost, I could not find it with a dog.

The rain is famous for falling on the just and unjust alike, but if I had the management of such affairs I would rain softly and sweetly on the just, but if I caught a sample of the unjust out doors I would drown him.

I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

There is nothing you can answer to a compliment. I have been complimented myself a great many times and they always embarrass me—I always feel they haven’t said enough.

He had only one vanity; he thought he could give advice better than any other person.

I could have made a neat retort but didn’t, for I was flurried and didn’t think of it till I was downstairs.

I am losing enough sleep to supply a worn-out army.

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

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.

Quitting smoking is easy. I’ve done it a thousand times.

He was as shy as a newspaper is when referring to his own merits.

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind: it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.

I was born excited.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Youth and Old Age
• Education
• Government, Politics, Law, and War
• Love
• Honesty and Its Opposite
• Religion
• Vices and Virtues
• Travel
• Work
• Mankind
• Miscellaneous Advice
• Himself