1
Adam was but human–this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.Mark Twain
2
There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous andshallow: Yet it was the schoolboy who said 'Faith is believing what youknow ain't so'.Mark Twain
3
When ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles, but in showers.Mark Twain
4
Behold, the fool saith, "Put not all thine eggs in the one basket" - which is but a matter of saying, "Scatter your money and your attention"; but the wise man saith, "Pull all your eggs in the one basket and - WATCH THAT BASKET." - Pudd'nhead Wilson's CalendarMark Twain
5
I'll not go where there is any of that sort of thing going on, again. It's the sure way, and the only sure way;Mark Twain
6
Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.Mark Twain
7
One must make allowances for a parental instinct that has been starving for twenty-five or thirty years. It is famished, it is crazed with hunger by that time, and will be entirely satisfied with anything that comes handy; its taste is atrophied, it can't tell mud cat from shad. A devil born to a young couple is measurably recognizable by them as a devil before long, but a devil adopted by an old couple is an angel to them, and remains so, through thick and thin.Mark Twain
8
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?Mark Twain
9
Everybody granted that if "Tom" were white and free it would be unquestionably right to punish him--it would be no loss to anybody; but to shut up a valuable slave for life--that was quite another matter. As soon as the Governor understood the case, he pardoned Tom at once, and the creditors sold him down the river.Mark Twain
10
October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.Mark Twain
11
To all intents and purposes Roxy was as white as anybody, but the one sixteenth of her which was black outvoted the other fifteen parts and made her a Negro. She was a slave, and salable as such.Mark Twain