I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Life on the Mississippi, ch. 6 (1883)
A strange and vanity-devoured, detestable woman! I do not believe I could ever learn to like her except on a raft at sea with no other provisions in sight.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 3, 3 July 1908 (2010)
(Source)
Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
“The Gorky Incident” (1906)
The holy passion of friendship is so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring in nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, ch. 8, epigraph (1894)
(Source)
I thoroughly disapprove of duels. I consider them unwise, and I know they are dangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me now, I would got to that man and take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet, retired spot, and kill him.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1, 1864 (2010)
(Source)
Seen paraphrased: "I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."
The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Mark Twain’s Notebook, 1898 [ed. Paine (1935)]
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
The Tragedy of Pudd’n’head Wilson, ch. 6 (1894)
Sometimes given: "Let us endeavor so to live that ..."
The majority is always in the wrong. Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it’s time to reform — (or pause and reflect).
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Mark Twain’s Notebook (13 Oct 1904) [ed. Paine (1935)]
It may be called the Master Passion, the hunger for self approval.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
What Is Man?, ch. 6 (1906)
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
(Spurious)
It was against my principles, but I find that principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
“Extracts from Adam’s Diary” (1904)
There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator (1897)
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
(Attributed)
First found in Merle Johnson, More Maxims of Mark (1927), and generally considered authentic. More info here.
The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
(Attributed)
You can’t reason someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
(Attributed)
There are many humorous things in the world, among them the white man’s notion that he is less savage than the other savages.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator (1897)
Each nation knowing it has the only true religion and the only sane system of government, each despising all the others, each an ass and not suspecting it.
But, on the other hand, Uncle Abner said that the person that had took a bull by the tail once had learnt sixty or seventy times as much as a person that hadn’t, and said a person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was gitting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn’t ever going to grow dim or doubtful.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894)
Full text.
Variants sometimes seen:
- The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.
- A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
We despise all reverences and all objects of reverence which are outside the pale of our list of sacred things. And yet, with strange inconsistency, we are shocked when other people despise and defile the things which are holy to us.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator (1897)
Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator, ch. 59, epigram (1897)
(Source)
It is not best that we should all think alike; it is differences of opinion that make horse races.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, ch. 19, epigraph (1894)
Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
In More Maxims of Mark [ed. M. Johnson (1925)]
A jealous person is doubly unhappy — over what he has, which is judged inferior, and over what he has not, which is judged superior. Such a person is doubly removed from knowing the true blessing of creation.
Desmond Tutu (1931-2021) South African cleric, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Nobel Laureate
An African Prayer Book
Poverty is not a disgrace; disgrace lies in poverty without ambition. A mean position is not a cause for contempt; contempt belongs to one in a mean position without ability. Old age is no cause for regret; regret that one is old, having lived in vain. Death is no cause for sorrow; sorrow that one dies without benefit to the world.
Mr. Tut-tut (fl. 17th C.) Chinese collector of proverbs (pseud.)
One Hundred Proverbs
Error is a hardy plant; it flourisheth in every soil;
In the heart of the wise and good, alike with the wicked and foolish;
For there is no error so crooked, but it hath in it some lines of truth;
Nor is any poison so deadly, that it serveth not some wholesome use.Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810-1889) English poet
“Of Truth in Things False,” Proverbial Philosophy (1838-49)
Yet men, scanning the surface, count the wicked happy; […]
They see not the frightful dreams that crowd a bad man’s pillow.Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810-1889) English poet
“Of Compensation,” Proverbial Philosophy (1838-1849)
Full text.
Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than an exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.
John Tukey (1915-2000) American mathematician and statistician
“The future of data analysis,” Annals of Mathematical Statistics 33 (1) (1962)
Paraphrased in Super Freakonomics as: "An approximate answer to the right question is worth a great deal more than a precise answer to the wrong question."
He that will only Give, and not Receive
Enslaves the Person whom he would Relieve.Sir Samuel Tuke (c. 1620-1674) English Royalist and playwright
The Adventures of Five Hours [Don Octavio] (1663)
Full text.
Maturity is knowing that just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean he’s a horse’s ass.
Harry S Truman (1884-1972) US President (1945-1953)
(Attributed)
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
Harry S Truman (1884-1972) US President (1945-1953)
(Spurious)
There is nothing contemporary to Truman indicating this is a valid quotation of his. The earliest instance of crediting Truman seems to be by Hugh Sidey in Time (7 Nov 1988).
A variant of this quote was also attributed to Ronald Reagan, apparently due to a plaque he kept in his office:
There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he does not mind who gets the credit.
More discussion of the quote and its actual origins going back to 1863: A Man May Do an Immense Deal of Good, If He Does Not Care Who Gets the Credit – Quote Investigator. See also Montague.
I have tried my best to give the nation everything I had in me. There are probably a million people who could have done the job better than I did it, but I had the job and I had to do it, and I always quote an epitaph on a tombstone in Tombstone, Ariz.: “Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnedest.”
Harry S Truman (1884-1972) US President (1945-1953)
Time, “The Presidency: The Answer Man” (28 Apr. 1952)
Speaking in Winslow, AZ (15 Jun 1948), Truman said, "You know, the greatest epitaph in the country is here in Arizona. It’s in Tombstone, Ariz., and this epitaph says, 'Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damndest.' I think that is the greatest epitaph a man could have."
To permit freedom of expression is primarily for the benefit of the majority, because it protects criticism, and criticism leads to progress.
Harry S Truman (1884-1972) US President (1945-1953)
Message to the House of Representatives, veto of McCarran Act (22-Sep-1950)
A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.
D. Elton Trueblood (1900-1994) American author, educator, theologian [David Elton Trueblood]
The Life We Prize (1951)
Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravitation
Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) Russian politician, Marxist, intellectual, revolutionary [b. Lev Davidovich Bronstein]
Where Is Britain Going?, “The Question of Revolutionary Force” (1925)
Alt. trans.: "A disbelief in violence is equivalent to a disbelief in gravitation."
The greatest amount of wasted time is the time not getting started.
Dawson Trotman (1906-1956) American activist, evangelist
(Attributed)
No man can be without his god. If he have not the true God to bless and sustain him, he will have some false god to delude and to betray him. … For every man has something in which he hopes, on which he leans, to which he retreats and retires, with which he fills up his thoughts in empty spaces of time, when he is alone, when he lies sleepless on his bed, when he is not pressed with other thoughts; to which he betakes himself in sorrow or trouble, as that from which he shall draw comfort and strength — his fortress, his citadel, his defense; and has not this a good right to be called his god?
Richard Chenevix Trench (1807-1886) English archbishop, philologist, poet
(Attributed)
The ivy cannot grow alone: it must twine round some support or other; if not the goodly oak, then the ragged thorn — round any dead stick whatever, rather than have no stay or support at all. It is even so with the heart and affections of man; if they do not twine around God, they must twine around some meaner thing.
Richard Chenevix Trench (1807-1886) English archbishop, philologist, poet
(Attributed)
The glue that holds all relationships together — including the relationship between the leader and the led — is trust, and trust is based on integrity.
Brian Tracy (b. 1944) American motivational speaker, writer
(Attributed)
To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men.
A. W. Tozer (1897-1963) American minister, author [Aiden Wilson Tozer]
Man – The Dwelling Place of God
Individual enlightenment is the indispensable means of social reform.
Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) English historian
The Toynbee-Ikeda Dialogue: Man Himself Must Choose, ch. 12 (1976)
Do not let yourselves be discouraged or embittered by the smallness of the success you are likely to achieve in trying to make life better. You certainly would not be able, in a single generation, to create an earthly paradise. Who could expect that? But, if you make life ever so little better, you will have done splendidly, and your lives will have been worthwhile.
Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) English historian
(Attributed)
Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.
Paul Tournier (1848-1986) Swiss physician, writer, philosopher
Secrets (1963)
Let us not seek to bring religion to others, but let us endeavor to live it ourselves.
Paul Tournier (1848-1986) Swiss physician, writer, philosopher
“Resources in Medical Training and Practice,” lecture (30 Mar 1965)
And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) Russian novelist and moral philosopher
Pamphlets, “Some Social Remedies,” “Three Methods of Reform” [tr. Free Age Press (1900)]
(Source)
More common variant: "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."
Progress consists, not in the increase of truth, but in freeing it from its wrappings. The truth is obtained like gold, not by letting it grow bigger, but by washing off from it everything that isn’t gold.
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) Russian novelist and moral philosopher
Tolstoy’s Diaries, Vol. 2 (ed., tr. Christian)
Alt trans: "Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold."
“It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two, Master Warden,” answered Éowyn. “And those who have not swords can still die upon them.”
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 3: The Return of the King, Book 6, ch. 5 “The Steward and the King” (1955)
(Source)
For myself, I would see the White Tree in flower again in the courts of the kings, and the Silver Crown return, and Minas Tirith in peace: Minas Anor again as of old, full of light, high and fair, beautiful as a queen among other queens; not as a mistress of many slaves, nay, not even a kind mistress of willing slaves. War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Númenor, and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom. Not feared, save as men may fear the dignity of a man, old and wise.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 2: The Two Towers, Book 4, ch. 5 “The Window on the West” [Faramir] (1954)
(Source)
Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses ….
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
Letter to Christopher Tolkien (1943-11-29)
(Source)
Letter 52 in Humphrey Carpenter, ed., The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1981).
The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 1: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, ch. 3 “Three Is Company” [Gildor, to Frodo] (1954)
(Source)
Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 1: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, ch. 2 “The Shadow of the Past” [Gandalf] (1954)
(Source)
Frodo later recounts these words (approximately) to Sam in The Two Towers.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 1: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, ch. 2 “The Shadow of the Past” (1954)
(Source)
It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Hobbit, ch. 12 “Inside Information” (1937)
(Source)
There are also conflicts about important things or ideas. In such cases I am more impressed by the extreme importance of being on the right side, than I am disturbed by the revelation of the jungle of confused motives, private purposes, and individual actions (noble or base) in which the right and the wrong in actual human conflicts are commonly involved.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
Notes on W. H. Auden’s review of Return of the King (1956)
(Source)
Auden's review: "At the End of the Quest, Victory," New York Times Book Review (1956-01-22).
Tolkien never sent or shared these notes. Reprinted in Humphrey Carpenter, ed., The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, #183 (1981).
He who breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 1: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, ch. 1 “The Council of Elrond” [Gandalf to Saruman] (1954)
(Source)
Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 3: The Return of the King, Book 5, ch. 9 “The Last Debate” [Gandalf] (1955)
(Source)