The spirit of wrath - not the words - is the sin; and the spirit of wrath is cursing. We begin to swear before we can talk.

Twenty-four years ago I was strangely handsome; in San Francisco in the rainy season I was often mistaken for fair weather.

Only laughter can blow [a colossal humbug] to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

You may have noticed that the less I know about a subject the more confidence I have, and the more new light I throw on it.

When someone dies, it is like when your house burns down; it isn't for years that you realize the full extent of your loss.

All say, ‘how hard it is that we have to die’ -- a strange complaint to come from the mouths of those who have had to live.

It is the will of God that we must have critics and missionaries and congressmen and humorists, and we must bear the burden

Well, no doubt it's a blessed thing to have an imagination that can always make you satisfied, no matter how you are fixed.

One of life's most over-valued pleasures is sexual intercourse; of one of life's least appreciated pleasures in defecation.

The critic's symbol should be the tumble-bug: he deposits his egg in somebody else's dung, otherwise he could not hatch it.

For all the talk you hear about knowledge being such a wonderful thing, instinct is worth forty of it for real unerringness.

The equator was wisely put where it is, because if it had been run through Europe all the kings would have tried to grab it.

You take the lies out of him, and he'll shrink to the size of your hat; you take the malice out of him, and he'll disappear.

Shall we go on conferring our Civilization upon the peoples that sit in darkness, or shall we give those poor things a rest?

Well enough for old folks to rise early, because they have done so many mean things all their lives they can't sleep anyhow.

India has 2,000,000 gods and worships them all. In religion, all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire.

The fact is, the king was a good deal more than a king, he was a man; and when a man is a man, you can't knock it out of him.

No church property is taxed and so the infidel and the atheist and the man without religion are taxed to make up the deficit.

Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass.

A good legible label is usually worth, for information, a ton of significant attitude and expression in a historical picture.

He has been a doctor a year now and has had two patients - no, three, I think - yes, it was three; I attended their funerals.

Wisdom teaches us that none but birds should go out early, and that not even birds should do it unless they are out of worms.

The citizen who sees his society's democratic clothes being worn out and does not cry it out, is not a patriot, but a traitor.

Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.

The old saw says - 'Let a sleeping dog lie.' Experience knows better; experience says, If you want to convince do it yourself.

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

India has two million gods, and worships them all. In religion all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire.

We get our morals from books. I didn't get mine from books, but I know that morals do come from books- theoretically at least.

Such is luck! And such the treatment which honest, good perservance gets so often at the hands of unfair and malicious Nature!

Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.

If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time.

Two days overdue, THE WORLD'S WORK has not reached me. Pray make a note of this. I would rather not have to resort to violence.

The old saw says, 'Let a sleeping dog lie.' Right. Still, when there is much at stake it is better to get a newspaper to do it.

Memories which someday will become all beautiful when the last annoyance that encumbers them shall have faded out of our minds.

The bane of Americans is overwork-and the ruin of any work is a divided interest. Concentrate-concentrate. One thing at a time.

In Austria an editor who can write well is valuable, but he is not likely to remain so unless he can handle a sabre with charm.

There's some human instinct which makes a man treasure what he is not to make any use of, because everybody does not possess it.

You may say organize, organize, organize; but there may be so much organization that it will interfere with the work to be done.

To go abroad has something of the same sense that death brings. I am no longer of ye-what ye say of me is now of no consequence.

We can't always have the beautiful aspect of things. Let us make the most of our sights that are beautiful and let the others go

Perhaps it will be simplest to throw away the tags and generalize India with one all-comprehensive name, as the Land of Wonders.

Ours is the "land of the free"-nobody denies that-nobody challenges it. (Maybe it is because we won't let other people testify.)

He does not care for flowers. Calls them rubbish, and cannot tell one from another, and thinks it is superior to feel like that.

When an audience does not complain, it is a compliment, and when it does, it is a compliment, too, if unaccompanied by violence.

...mastery of the art and spirit of the Germanic language enables a man to travel all day in one sentence without changing cars.

A dream...I was trying to explain to St. Peter, and was doing it in the German tongue, because I didn't want to be too explicit.

I can't do no literary work for the rest of this year because I'm meditating another lawsuit and looking around for a defendant.

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

Benaras is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together!

To be satisfied with what one has; that is wealth. As long as one sorely needs a certain additional amount, that man isn't rich.

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