Mark Twain quotes

[ziggy29]

My favorite Mark Twain quote: "Life should begin with age and its privileges and accumulations, and end with youth and its capacity to splendidly enjoy such advantages."

 

[NW-Bound]

"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."

Some people do not know this quote from Mark Twain: "Put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket".

Mark Twain invested heavily in a small startup that did not pay off. According to a Web site, he suffered a "$150,000 loss -- $4 million in today's dollars -- on the Paige Compositor, an automatic typesetting machine that Twain believed would revolutionize the publishing industry".

He declared bankruptcy at the age of 59. It is said that he eventually paid off all his debts though he was legally cleared of them, an honorable man that he was.

 

[ziggy29]

Mark Twain invested heavily in a small startup that did not pay off. According to a Web site, he suffered a "$150,000 loss -- $4 million in today's dollars -- on the Paige Compositor, an automatic typesetting machine that Twain believed would revolutionize the publishing industry".

He declared bankruptcy at the age of 59. It is said that he eventually paid off all his debts, a honorable man that he was.

Born in 1835, I suspect that he was a casualty of the brief but serious depression caused by the Panic of 1893. It could have been a lot worse had J.P. Morgan (the man, not the legacy firm and not the Gong Show celebrity) didn't step in and add the modern equivalent of many billions of dollars of liquidity into the system.

 

[imoldernu]

Third grade... Tom Sawyer... prompted a love of reading. In the 1940's Mark Twain was still in our era. Except for radio, no different, and we could easily see the whitewashed fence and Becky Thatcher...

They sprang to their feet and hurried to the shore toward the town. They parted the bushes on the bank and peered out over the water. The little steam ferry-boat was about a mile below the village, drifting with the current. Her broad deck seemed crowded with people. There were a great many skiffs rowing about or floating with the stream in the neighborhood of the ferryboat, but the boys could not determine what the men in them were doing. Presently a great jet of white smoke burst from the ferryboat's side, and as it expanded and rose in a lazy cloud, that same dull throb of sound was borne to the listeners again.

"I know now!" exclaimed Tom; "somebody's drownded!"

"That's it!" said Huck; "they done that last summer, when Bill Turner got drownded; they shoot a cannon over the water, and that makes him come up to the top. Yes, and they take loaves of bread and put quicksilver in 'em and set 'em afloat, and wherever there's anybody that's drownded, they'll float right there and stop."

"Yes, I've heard about that," said Joe. "I wonder what makes the bread do that."

"Oh, it ain't the bread, so much," said Tom; "I reckon it's mostly what they SAY over it before they start it out."

"But they don't say anything over it," said Huck. "I've seen 'em and they don't."

"Well, that's funny," said Tom. "But maybe they say it to themselves. Of COURSE they do. Anybody might know that."

The other boys agreed that there was reason in what Tom said, because an ignorant lump of bread, uninstructed by an incantation, could not be expected to act very intelligently when set upon an errand of such gravity.

"By jings, I wish I was over there, now," said Joe.

"I do too" said Huck "I'd give heaps to know who it is."

The boys still listened and watched. Presently a revealing thought flashed through Tom's mind, and he exclaimed:

"Boys, I know who's drownded -- it's us!"

Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain; CHAPTER XIV Page 3

 

[Sarah in SC]

Thought about this one the other day, and so true of the boredom of life after a much-anticipated and long-planned adventure!

"There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land (and work) again after a cheerful, careless voyage."

 

[NW-Bound]

"There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land (and work) again after a cheerful, careless voyage."

Hmm... Obviously, Mark Twain's cherished trip was comfortable, much like on a modern cruise ship, and not like the trip the Pilgrims suffered on the Mayflower. Surely, I would have the same sentiment.

 

[Sarah in SC]

I agree, even a terribly uncomfortable trip where you sleep in ditches has you longing for a return to travel once you get back home to the office. I'd honestly rather be in Siberia than at work...isn't that why I've been a member of this forum for 9 years, after all?

 

[Tailgate]

here's an excellent quote

 

[ERhoosier]

Among his best quotes were timeless political commentary.

- Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

- There is no distinctly American criminal class.....except Congress.

- The difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector is that the taxidermist only takes your skin.

 

[ChainsBeGone]

Mark Twain was actually very influential in my decision to stop waiting one more year and to just go for it and RE 14 months ago (age 48), he advised:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that 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.”

And that's what my wife and I have been doing since then.

 

[athena53]

“Sometimes I wonder if the world is run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”

 

[Nemo2]

"I'm glad I did it, partly because it was worth doing, but mostly because I'll never have to do it again."....Mark Twain

Which succinctly sums up my one and only parachute jump, back in 1978.

 

[jjquantz]

Which succinctly sums up my one and only parachute jump, back in 1978.

Also describes my one and only marathon and my one and only triathlon.

 

[Nemo2]

Also describes my one and only marathon and my one and only triathlon.

I got one marathon in before my knees gave out completely......glad I did it.....wish I could still run.

 

[jjquantz]

I got one marathon in before my knees gave out completely......glad I did it.....wish I could still run.

Knees are my problem, too. Once every year or so I think to myself, I should just take a short run and see how the knee is doing. All it takes is a mile or so and I realize just how stupid the idea was. Bicycling is ok, but it just isn't as satisfying as running for me. I swim like a rock, so the triathlon was an adventure.

 

[LitGal]

Favorites from Huck Finn

Chap. 21, when the Duke and Dauphin (rapscallion con artists) are prepping their performance of Romeo and Juliet:

"The duke had to learn him over and over again how to say every speech...and after a while he said he done it pretty well; 'only," he says, 'you mustn't bellow out Romeo! that way, like a bull-- you must say it soft and sick and languishy, so-- Ro-o-meo! that is the idea; for Juliet's a dear sweet mere child of a girl, you know, and she doesn't bray like a jackass.'"


Chap. 27, when Huck attends Peter Wilkes's funeral:

"They had borrowed a melodeum-- a sick one; and when everything was ready a young woman set down and worked it, and it was pretty skreeky and colicky, and everybody joined in and sung and Peter was the only one that had a good thing, according to my notion. Then the Reverend Hobson opened up, slow and solemn, and begun to talk; and straight off the most outrageous row busted out in the cellar...it was only one dog, but he made a most powerful racket, and he kept it up right along... but pretty soon that long-legged undertaker make a sign to the preacher as much as to say, 'Don't you worry--just depend on me.' Then he stooped down and begun to glide along the wall...and the powwow and racket getting more and more outrageous all the time; and at last,...he disappears down cellar. Then in about two seconds we heard a whack, and the dog he finished up with a most amazing howl or two, and then everything was dead still, and the parson begun his solemn talk where he left off. In a minute or two here comes this undertaker's back and shoulders gliding along the wall again...and shaded his mouth with his hands, and stretched his neck out towards the preacher, over the people's heads, and says, in a kind of a coarse whisper, 'He had a rat!"....You could see it was a great satisfaction to the people....a little thing like that don't cost nothing, and it's just the little things that makes a man to be looked up to and liked. There warn't no more popular man in town than what that undertaker was."

 

[Nemo2]

Bicycling is ok, but it just isn't as satisfying as running for me.

We think alike.......ah well, there are always memories.