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Humor Quotes by Mark Twain

112 Humor quotes by Mark Twain

All Humor quotes Mark Twain’s page

A story says humor is like a scent that decorates life. The quotes note that jokes differ across cultures, such as American, English, and French styles. They also remind us that even a dull exterior hides comedy, and that true humor is a light decoration, not a serious weapon.

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Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

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Humor is the good natured side of a truth.

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The Creator made Italy from designs by Michelangelo.

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I can last two months on a good compliment.

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The funniest things are the forbidden.

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Comedy keeps the heart sweet.

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Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.

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The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow.

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When a man's dog turns against hime, it is time for his wife to pack her trunk and go home to mamma.

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If you can't get a compliment any other way, pay yourself one.

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I wasn't worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two million dollars.

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When red-headed people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.

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Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom.

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“congress - that great, benevolent asylum for the helpless”

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“Having faith is believing in something you just know ain't true.”

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The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.

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Wit and Humor - if any difference, it is in duration - lightning and electric light. Same material, apparently; but one is…

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When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.…

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The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect…

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“There’s no such thing as an uninteresting life, such a thing is an impossibility. Beneath the dullest exterior, there is a drama,…

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The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet.

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Humor is the great thing, the saving thing after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations,…

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Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.

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...nothing so liberalizes a man and expands the kindly instincts that nature put in him as travel and contact with many kinds…

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“The Jabalites … They worship no god; and if we in goodness of heart do send a missionary to show them the…

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I pity the fellow who has to create a dialect or paraphrase the dictionary to get laughs. I can't spell, but I…

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You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does -- but you let a cat get excited once; you…

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“Occasionally, merely for the pleasure of being cruel, we put unoffending Frenchmen on the rack with questions framed in the incomprehensible jargon…

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“The choir always tittered and whispered all through service. There was once a church choir that was not ill-bred, but I have…

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Comedy keeps the heart sweet; but we all know that there is wholesome refreshment for both mind and heart in an occasional…

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“Mark Twain describes how his friend Ralph Keeler introduced him at the start of a lecture: " 'I don't know anything about…

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We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we…

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I thought tamarinds were made to eat, but that was probably not the idea. I ate several, and it seemed to me…

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“The first glance at the pillow showed me a repulsive sentinel perched upon each end of it--cockroaches as large as peach leaves--fellows…

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“The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad. I speak now, of…

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“First they done a lecture on temperance; but they didn't make enough for them both to get drunk on. Then in another…

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So you see, the quality of humor is not a personal or a national monopoly. It's as free as salvation, and, I…

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“Lying is universal - we all do it. Therefore, the wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully,…

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“It was such ecstacy to dream, and dream - till you got a bite. A scorpion bite. Then the first duty was…

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“And now the minister prayed. A good, generous prayer it was, and went into details: it pleaded for the church, and the…

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More by Mark Twain

Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.

If you had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you could not have graduated with higher honor than you could…

“The Creator sat upon the throne, thinking. Behind him stretched the illimitable continent of heaven, steeped in a glory of light and color; before…

It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times.

“It is never wrong to do the right thing.”

A man accustomed to American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe, but I think he would gradually…

There is nothing training can't cannot do. Nothing is above its reach.

I never write Metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get…

The higher animals get their teeth without pain or inconvenience. Man gets his through months and months of cruel torture; he will never get…

“As far as I can see, Italy, for fifteen hundred years, has turned all her energies, all her finances, and all her industry to…

Begin with the determination to succeed and the work is half done already.

Many public-school children seem to know only two dates—1492 and 4th of July; and as a rule they don't know what happened on either…

If we could imagine such a man, that is a man who could invent the fly and send him out on his mission and…

You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly…

Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.