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Humorous Quotes by Mark Twain

42 Humorous quotes by Mark Twain

All Humorous quotes Mark Twain’s page

A kid who only remembers 1492 and July 4 wonders why the dates matter. Twain jokes that schoolchildren learn facts but not stories, and he draws funny lines between American, English and French humor. He also shares personal quirks, like hating classical music and loving a good cigar.

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The funniest things are the forbidden.

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Nothing helps scenery like bacon and eggs.

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

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I am pushing sixty. That is enough exercise for me.

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No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the presence of ladies.

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It is no harm to be an ass, if one is content to bray and not kick.

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... all the modern inconveniences ...

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Let us swear while we may, for in heaven it will not be allowed

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Humor must be one of the chief attributes of God. Plants and animals that are distinctly humorous in form and characteristics are…

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They spell it da Vinci and pronounce it da Vinchy. Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.

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“The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French.”

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The house was as empty as a beer closet in premises where painters have been at work.

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...there isn't often anything in Wagner opera that one would call by such a violent name as acting.

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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…

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... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often picturesque liar.

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But soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, But get thee to a nunnery - go!

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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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I have attended operas, whenever I could not help it, for fourteen years now; I am sure I know of no agony…

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Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would…

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In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in…

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I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious - unless he purposely shut…

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The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness--your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture…He takes upon himself…

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I have never heard enough classical music to be able to enjoy it; & the simple truth is, I detest it. Not…

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The humorist who invented trial by jury played a colossal practical joke upon the world, but since we have the system we…

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The proverb says, "Born lucky, always lucky," and I am very superstitious. As a small boy I was notoriously lucky. It was…

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I have never examined the subject of humor until now. I am surprised to find how much ground it covers. I have…

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I have witnessed and greatly enjoyed the first act of everything which Wagner created, but the effect on me has always been…

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“Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full of harmony…

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“He done his level best. Was he a mining on the flat.. He done it with a zest.. Was he a leading…

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He had the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.

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I'm pushing 60 years of age...and that's enough exercise for me.

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Always obey your parents - when they are present.

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To succeed in the other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do.

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At 50, a man can be an ass without being an optimist but not an optimist without being an ass

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There ought to be a room in every house to swear in. It's dangerous to have to repress an emotion like that.

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“Sage went supperless to bed, and tossed and writhed all night upon a shuck mattress that was full of attentive and interested…

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He has been a doctor a year now and has had two patients - no, three, I think - yes, it was…

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There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind-the humorous.

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Eating and sleeping are the only activities that should be allowed to interrupt a man's enjoyment of his cigar.

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There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other…

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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.