A Tramp Abroad (1880)
Kontext: You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does -- but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use.

“A home without a cat — and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat — may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?”

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Mark Twain buch Knallkopf Wilson

Quelle: Pudd'nhead Wilson

“When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction.”

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Mark Twain

Quelle: Who Is Mark Twain?

“I wish I could make him understand that a loving good heart is riches enough, and that without it intellect is poverty.”

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Mark Twain

Quelle: The Diary of Adam and Eve

“Anyone who can only think of one way to spell a word obviously lacks imagination.”

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Mark Twain

“It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.”

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Mark Twain

“An honest politician is an oxymoron.”

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Mark Twain

“The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.”

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Mark Twain Christian Science

Christian Science (1907)
Kontext: When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious matters. When a thoughtful and unblessed Mohammedan examines the Westminster Catechism, he knows that beyond any question I am spiritually insane. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can prove anything to a lunatic — for that is a part of his insanity and the evidence of it. He cannot prove to me that I am insane, for my mind has the same defect that afflicts his. All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it; none but the Republicans and Mugwumps know it. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats and Mugwumps can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

“That's the difference between governments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do.”

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Mark Twain buch Bummel durch Europa

Quelle: A Tramp Abroad

“Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.”

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Mark Twain

“We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that the savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter.”

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Mark Twain buch Bummel durch Europa

A Tramp Abroad (1880)

“When I was a boy a farmer's wife who lived five miles from our village had great fame as a faith-doctor—that was what she called herself. Sufferers came to her from all around, and she laid her hand upon them and said, "Have faith—it is all that is necessary," and they went away well of their ailments. She was not a religious woman, and pretended to no occult powers. She said that the patient's faith in her did the work. Several times I saw her make immediate cures of severe toothaches. My mother was the patient. In Austria there is a peasant who drives a great trade in this sort of industry, and has both the high and the low for patients. He gets into prison every now and then for practising without a diploma, but his business is as brisk as ever when he gets out, for his work is unquestionably successful and keeps his reputation high. In Bavaria there is a man who performed so many great cures that he had to retire from his profession of stage-carpentering in order to meet the demand of his constantly increasing body of customers. He goes on from year to year doing his miracles, and has become very rich. He pretends to no religious helps, no supernatural aids, but thinks there is something in his make-up which inspires the confidence of his patients, and that it is this confidence which does the work, and not some mysterious power issuing from himself.”

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Mark Twain Christian Science

Quelle: Christian Science (1907), Ch. 4

“Within the last quarter of a century, in America, several sects of curers have appeared under various names and have done notable things in the way of healing ailments without the use of medicines. There are the Mind Cure, the Faith Cure, the Prayer Cure, the Mental Science Cure, and the Christian-Science Cure; and apparently they all do their miracles with the same old, powerful instrument—the patient's imagination. Differing names, but no difference in the process. But they do not give that instrument the credit; each sect claims that its way differs from the ways of the others.

They all achieve some cures, there is no question about it; and the Faith Cure and the Prayer Cure probably do no harm when they do no good, since they do not forbid the patient to help out the cure with medicines if he wants to; but the others bar medicines, and claim ability to cure every conceivable human ailment through the application of their mental forces alone. There would seem to be an element of danger here. It has the look of claiming too much, I think. Public confidence would probably be increased if less were claimed.”

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Mark Twain Christian Science

Book I, Ch. 4
Christian Science (1907)

“The Jew has his other side. He has some discreditable ways, though he has not a monopoly of them… He has a reputation for various small forms of cheating, and for practising oppressive usury, and for burning himself out to get the insurance, and for arranging cunning contracts which leave him an exit but lock the other man in, and for smart evasions which find him safe and comfortable just within the strict letter of the law, when court and jury know very well that he has violated the spirit of it.”

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Mark Twain buch Concerning the Jews

Concerning the Jews (Harper's Magazine, Sept. 1899)

“A gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years.”

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Mark Twain buch Bummel durch Europa

A Tramp Abroad (1880)

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

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Mark Twain

This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but the attribution cannot be verified. The quote should not be regarded as authentic. — Twainquotes http://www.twainquotes.com/Discovery.html <br class="br">Actually from the 1990 book P. S. I Love You' https://books.google.com/books?id=5OORXU6rlGIC&q=bowlines#v=onepage&q=bowlines&f=false' by H. Jackson Brown. <br class="br">Misattributed