Mark Twain Quotes

A collection of quotes by Mark Twain.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and lecturer. He was born on November 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri. Twain is renowned for his classic American novels, including "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."

At a young age, Twain moved with his family to Hannibal, Missouri, a town that became the inspiration for his fictional works. As a teenager, he worked as a printer's apprentice and later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River. However, the advent of the Civil War disrupted river traffic, leading him to explore other professions.

Twain gained popularity as a humorist with his witty essays and short stories published in newspapers. However, it was his novels that solidified his reputation as a literary icon. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and its sequel, "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," beautifully captured his observations of American society and the complexities of race and morality.

His writing style was marked by sharp wit, satire, and a distinct vernacular voice that reflected the colloquial language of the American Midwest. Twain's works not only entertained readers but also provided commentary on various social issues of his time.

Throughout his career, Twain became a celebrated public figure, known for his insightful lectures and travel writings. His works have had a lasting impact not only on American literature but also on the development of the modern short story and the American novel. Mark Twain remains an influential figure in the literary world, remembered for his ability to capture the essence of the human experience through his unique storytelling style.

It was pitiful for a person born in a wholesome free atmosphere to listen to their humble and hearty outpourings of loyalty toward their king and Church and nobility; as if they had any more occasion to love and honor king and Church and noble than a slave has to love and honor the lash, or a dog has to love and honor the stranger that kicks him! Why, dear me, ANY kind of royalty, howsoever modified, ANY kind of aristocracy, howsoever pruned, is rightly an insult; but if you are born and brought up under that sort of arrangement you probably never find it out for yourself, and don't believe it when somebody else tells you. It is enough to make a body ashamed of his race to think of the sort of froth that has always occupied its thrones without shadow of right or reason, and the seventh-rate people that have always figured as its aristocracies -- a company of monarchs and nobles who, as a rule, would have achieved only poverty and obscurity if left, like their betters, to their own exertions... The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world for one object, and one only: to grovel before king and Church and noble; to slave for them, sweat blood for them, starve that they might be fed, work that they might play, drink misery to the dregs that they might be happy, go naked that they might wear silks and jewels, pay taxes that they might be spared from paying them, be familiar all their lives with the degrading language and postures of adulation that they might walk in pride and think themselves the gods of this world. And for all this, the thanks they got were cuffs and contempt; and so poor-spirited were they that they took even this sort of attention as an honor.

Mark Twain