Mark Twain Trail Quote of the Day – Monday – April 12, 2021
“It is good to obey all the rules when you’re young, so you’ll have the strength to break them when you’re old.” Mark Twain
"To Wander, To Learn, To Dream, To Build"
“It is good to obey all the rules when you’re young, so you’ll have the strength to break them when you’re old.” Mark Twain
“When we presently got under way and went poking down the broad Ohio, I became a new being, and the subject of my own admiration. I was a traveler! A word never had tasted so good in my mouth before. I had an exultant sense of being bound for mysterious lands and distant climes which I never have felt in so uplifting a degree since. I was in such a glorified condition that all ignoble feelings departed out of me, and I was able to look down and pity the untraveled with a compassion that had hardly a trace of contempt in it. Still, when we stopped at villages and wood-yards, I could not help lolling carelessly upon the railings of the boiler deck to enjoy the envy of the country boys on the bank. If they did not seem to discover me, I presently sneezed to attract their attention, or moved to a position where they could not help seeing me. And as soon as I knew they saw me I gaped and stretched, and gave other signs of being mightily bored with traveling.” Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, 1883
“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.” Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson, 1893
“Piloting on the Mississippi River was not work to me; it was play — delightful play, vigorous play, adventurous play — and I loved it.” Mark Twain, Eruption, 1940
“There is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it.” Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad, 1880
“I haven’t a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices.” Mark Twain
“Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.” Mark Twain
“When you’re mad, count four; when you’re very mad, swear! But most of us don’t wait to count four! at least I don’t!” Mark Twain
“The most useful and interesting letters we get here from home are from children seven or eight years old…They write simply and naturally and without straining for effect. They tell all they know, and stop.” Mark Twain, An Open Letter to the American People, New York Weekly Review, February 17, 1866
“A full belly is of little worth where the mind is starved, and the heart.” The Prince and the Pauper, 1881