Mark Twain quote: "...gratitude is a debt which usually goes on accumulating like blackmail; the more you pay, the more is exacted. In time, you are made to realize that the kindness done you is become a curse and you wish it had not happened."

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
MARK TWAIN

My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.
MARK TWAIN

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.
MARK TWAIN

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure tha...
MARK TWAIN

The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.
MARK TWAIN

India has 2,000,000 gods and worships them all. In religion, all other countries are paupers; India ...
MARK TWAIN

Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.
MARK TWAIN

I never let schooling interfere with my education.
MARK TWAIN

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
MARK TWAIN

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.
MARK TWAIN

The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed rig...
MARK TWAIN

There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress.
MARK TWAIN

In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.
MARK TWAIN

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here firs...
MARK TWAIN

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one...
MARK TWAIN

The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it.
MARK TWAIN

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
MARK TWAIN

Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of ti...
MARK TWAIN

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
MARK TWAIN

The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.
MARK TWAIN

The lack of money is the root of all evil.
MARK TWAIN

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
MARK TWAIN

Optimist: day dreamer more elegantly spelled.
MARK TWAIN

Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
MARK TWAIN

Man was made at the end of the week's work, when God was tired.
MARK TWAIN

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
MARK TWAIN

There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
MARK TWAIN

Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
MARK TWAIN

Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside...
MARK TWAIN

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
MARK TWAIN

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

Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
MARK TWAIN

I make it a rule never to smoke while I'm sleeping.
MARK TWAIN

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
MARK TWAIN

All generalizations are false, including this one.
MARK TWAIN

'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read.
MARK TWAIN

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a ba...
MARK TWAIN

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
MARK TWAIN

Let us endeavor so to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
MARK TWAIN

I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places.
MARK TWAIN

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
MARK TWAIN

If I owned half of that dog, I would shoot my half.
MARK TWAIN

What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed ...
MARK TWAIN

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

When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victorymu...
MARK TWAIN

The teacher reminded us that Romes liberties were not auctioned off in a day, but were bought slowly...
MARK TWAIN

By his father he is English, by his mother he is Americanto my mind the blend which makes the perfec...
MARK TWAIN

So I became a newspaperman. I hated to do it but I couldnt find honest employment.
MARK TWAIN

The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They looked curiously at the costumes...
MARK TWAIN

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in itand stop there; lest w...
MARK TWAIN

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large mattertis the diff...
MARK TWAIN

Say the report is exaggerated.
MARK TWAIN

A jay hasnt got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will ...
MARK TWAIN

To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman.
MARK TWAIN

I think I can say, and say with pride, that we have some legislatures that bring higher prices than ...
MARK TWAIN

A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle; ...they squabble and scold and fight; t...
MARK TWAIN

Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the st...
MARK TWAIN

Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born --a hundred mi...
MARK TWAIN

Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to...
MARK TWAIN

We never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead -- and not then ...
MARK TWAIN

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
MARK TWAIN

All say, How hard it is that we have to die -- a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people...
MARK TWAIN

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find...
MARK TWAIN

Write without pay until somebody offers to pay you. If nobody offers within three years, sawing wood...
MARK TWAIN

As to the adjective, when in doubt strike it out.
MARK TWAIN

I am admonished in many ways that time is pushing me inexorably along. I am approaching the threshol...
MARK TWAIN

Methuselah lived to be 969 years old . You boys and girls will see more in the next fifty years than...
MARK TWAIN

The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without burst...
MARK TWAIN

When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old.
MARK TWAIN

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.
MARK TWAIN

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do wh...
MARK TWAIN

To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know because I've done it a thousand ...
MARK TWAIN

Never have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.
MARK TWAIN

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal...
MARK TWAIN

Man was made at the end of the week's work, when God was tired
MARK TWAIN

It is a mistake that there is no bath that will cure people's manners, but drowning would help.
MARK TWAIN

Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to.
MARK TWAIN

Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting...
MARK TWAIN

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

Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known and I know the rest.
MARK TWAIN

The church is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not be a bad idea to reform itse...
MARK TWAIN

Stars are good too. I wish I could get some to put in my hair. But I suppose I never can. You would ...
MARK TWAIN

There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry.
MARK TWAIN

The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things tha...
MARK TWAIN

Optimist: Day-dreamer more elegantly spelled
MARK TWAIN

Necessity is the mother of "taking chances"
MARK TWAIN

Distance lends enchantment to the view
MARK TWAIN

Be good and you will be lonesome.
MARK TWAIN

Chastity - you can carry it too far
MARK TWAIN

To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler--and less trouble.
MARK TWAIN

Most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in it...
MARK TWAIN

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
MARK TWAIN

When you cannot get a compliment in any other way pay yourself one.
MARK TWAIN

There is nothing you can say in answer to a compliment. I have been complimented myself a great many...
MARK TWAIN

Never learn to do anything. If you don't learn, you will always find someone else to do it for you.
MARK TWAIN

I can't do literary work for the rest of this year because I'm meditating another lawsuit and lookin...
MARK TWAIN

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would...
MARK TWAIN

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relati...
MARK TWAIN

Wit and Humor -- if any difference, it is in duration -- lightning and electric light. Same material...
MARK TWAIN

Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no...
MARK TWAIN

There is a great deal of human nature in people.
MARK TWAIN

If man had created man, he would be ashamed of his performance.
MARK TWAIN

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.
MARK TWAIN

The human race was always interesting and we know by its past that it will always continue so, monot...
MARK TWAIN

Man is a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
MARK TWAIN

Such is the human race. Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat...
MARK TWAIN

It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts th...
MARK TWAIN

Of all the various kinds of sexual intercourse, this has the least to recommend it. As an amusement,...
MARK TWAIN

Scientists have odious manners, except when you prop up their theory; then you can borrow money of t...
MARK TWAIN

Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.
MARK TWAIN

Man is the only creature who has a nasty mind.
MARK TWAIN

We like a man to come right out and say what he thinks, if we agree with him.
MARK TWAIN

O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover th...
MARK TWAIN

A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be lead by the nose.
MARK TWAIN

Happiness ain't a thing in itself --it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant. And so,...
MARK TWAIN

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one: keep from telling their happiness to...
MARK TWAIN

I repeat, sir, that in whatever position you place a woman she is an ornament to society and a treas...
MARK TWAIN

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. The conviction of the rich...
MARK TWAIN

Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide i...
MARK TWAIN

Let us be grateful to Adam, our benefactor. He cut us out of the blessing of idleness and won for us...
MARK TWAIN

Intellectual work is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward.
MARK TWAIN

Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.
MARK TWAIN

I do not like work even when someone else does it.
MARK TWAIN

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and play consists of whatever a body is not oblig...
MARK TWAIN

Often the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.
MARK TWAIN

Truth is neither alive nor dead; it just aggravates itself all the time.
MARK TWAIN

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

We had the sky up there, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss whether th...
MARK TWAIN

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True ...
MARK TWAIN

When you ascend the hill of prosperity, may you not meet a friend.
MARK TWAIN

Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know.
MARK TWAIN

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

We need not worry so much about what man descends from; it's what he descends to that shames the hum...
MARK TWAIN

There's always something about your success that displeases even your best friends.
MARK TWAIN

I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious -- except he...
MARK TWAIN

There was never a century nor a country that was short of experts who knew the Deity's mind and were...
MARK TWAIN

People are much more willing to lend you books than bookcases.
MARK TWAIN

My books are water; those of the great geniuses are wine -- everybody drinks water.
MARK TWAIN

A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razor strap. A thin book is useful to stick under a table ...
MARK TWAIN

When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man's moral constitution and make a te...
MARK TWAIN

In statesmanship get the formalities right, never mind about the moralities.
MARK TWAIN

Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.
MARK TWAIN

The lack of money is the root of all evils.
MARK TWAIN

His money is twice tainted: taint yours and taint mine.
MARK TWAIN

Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: The one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures...
MARK TWAIN

All schools, all colleges, have two great functions: to confer, and to conceal, valuable knowledge. ...
MARK TWAIN

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. Traini...
MARK TWAIN

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only m...
MARK TWAIN

There are many scapegoats for our sins, but the most popular is providence.
MARK TWAIN

It is by the goodness of God that we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech...
MARK TWAIN

There isn't a single human characteristic that can be safely labeled as American.
MARK TWAIN

War talk by men who have been in a war is always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has no...
MARK TWAIN

There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to go somewhe...
MARK TWAIN

To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character one must judge it by the standards of his...
MARK TWAIN

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
MARK TWAIN

A wise man does not waste so good a commodity as lying for naught.
MARK TWAIN

A lie can run around the world six times while the truth is still trying to put on its pants.
MARK TWAIN

I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, b...
MARK TWAIN

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.
MARK TWAIN

A good memory and a tongue tied in the middle is a combination which gives immortality to conversati...
MARK TWAIN

Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, for democracy is the most expe...
MARK TWAIN

Satan hasn't a single salaried helper; the Opposition employ a million.
MARK TWAIN

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.
MARK TWAIN

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear. Except a creature be part cowar...
MARK TWAIN

Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself
MARK TWAIN

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man aro...
MARK TWAIN

Faith is believing what you know ain't so.
MARK TWAIN

It was the schoolboy who said, Faith is believing what you know ain't so.
MARK TWAIN

Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.
MARK TWAIN

There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it ...
MARK TWAIN

I've never let my school interfere with my education.
MARK TWAIN

In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in al...
MARK TWAIN

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).
MARK TWAIN

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal di...
MARK TWAIN

A person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was getting knowledge that was always going...
MARK TWAIN

Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiment...
MARK TWAIN

Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the leash. That one is the ca...
MARK TWAIN

If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the r...
MARK TWAIN

The Bible has noble poetry in it... and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a...
MARK TWAIN

Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are economical in its...
MARK TWAIN

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.
MARK TWAIN

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the reall...
MARK TWAIN

If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.
MARK TWAIN

′Classic′ - a book which people praise and don't read.
MARK TWAIN

Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.
MARK TWAIN

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
MARK TWAIN

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.
MARK TWAIN

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Trut...
MARK TWAIN

Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.
MARK TWAIN

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
MARK TWAIN

All right, then, I'll go to hell.
MARK TWAIN

The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man's.
MARK TWAIN

Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
MARK TWAIN

If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be—a Christian.
MARK TWAIN

To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.
MARK TWAIN

Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it ...
MARK TWAIN

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

Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.
MARK TWAIN

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
MARK TWAIN

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.
MARK TWAIN

...gratitude is a debt which usually goes on accumulating like blackmail; the more you pay, the more is exacted. In time, you are made to realize that the kindness done you is become a curse and you wish it had not happened.

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Mark Twain

...gratitude is a debt which usually goes on accumulating like blackmail; the more you pay, the more is exacted. In time, you are made to realize that the kindness done you is become a curse and you wish it had not happened.

Mark Twain

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