Quote

A man who keeps company with glaciers comes to feel tolerably insignificiant by and by. The Alps and the glaciers together are able to take every bit of conceit out of a man and reduce his self-importance to zero if he will only remain within the influence of their sublime presence long enough to give it a fair and reasonable chance to do its work.

Mark Twain

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Mark Twain
Age: 74 †
Born: 1835
Born: November 30
Died: 1910
Died: April 21
Aphorist
Author
Autobiographer
Humorist
Journalist
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Teacher
Florida
Missouri
Samuel Langhorne Clemens
Samuel L. Clemens
Samuel Clemens
Men
Take
Company
Fairs
Tolerably
Enough
Within
Presence
Alps
Feel
Chance
Keeps
Glaciers
Feels
Comes
Fair
Conceit
Giving
Give
Remain
Sublime
Work
Together
Importance
Reduce
Every
Able
Influence
Zero
Long
Self
Bits
Reasonable

More quotes by Mark Twain

Image
The Creator made Italy from designs by Michelangelo.
Mark Twain
Image
As a rule, we go about with masks, we go about looking honest, and we are able to conceal ourselves all through the day.
Mark Twain
Image
Circumstances make man, not man circumstances.
Mark Twain
Image
She is not refined. She is not unrefined. She keeps a parrot
Mark Twain
Image
It's an epitome of life. The first half of it consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance the last half consists of the chance without the capacity.
Mark Twain
Image
I never write metropolis for seven cents when I can write city and get paid the same.
Mark Twain
Image
It is at our mother's knee that we acquire our noblest and truest and highest ideals.
Mark Twain
Image
Heroine: Girl in a book who is saved from drowning by a hero and marries him next week, but if it was to be over again ten years later it is likely she would rather have a life-belt and he would rather have her have it. Hero: Person in a book who does things which he can't and girl marries him for it.
Mark Twain
Image
[The Bible is] a mass of fables and traditions, mere mythology.
Mark Twain
Image
The dreamer's valuation of a thing lost - not another man's - is the only standard to measure it by, and his grief for it makes it large and great and fine, and is worthy of our reverence in all cases.
Mark Twain
Image
You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure--because he's got feathers on him, and don't belong to no church, perhapsbut otherwise he is just as much a human as you be. And I'll tell you for why. A jay's gifts and instincts, and feelings, and interests, cover the whole ground. A jay hasn't got any more principle than a Congressman.
Mark Twain
Image
The proverb says, Born lucky, always lucky, and I am very superstitious. As a small boy I was notoriously lucky. It was usual for one or two of our lads (per annum) to get drowned in the Mississippi or in Bear Creek, but I was pulled out in a 2/3 drowned condition 9 times before I learned to swim, and was considered to be a cat in disguise.
Mark Twain
Image
It has always been a peculiarity of the human race that it keeps two sets of morals in stock-the private and the real, and the public and the artificial.
Mark Twain
Image
Etiquette requires us to admire the human race.
Mark Twain
Image
We all like to see people sea-sick when we are not ourselves.
Mark Twain
Image
All human rules are more or less idiotic.
Mark Twain
Image
We recognize that there are no trivial occurrences in life if we get the right focus on them.
Mark Twain
Image
What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.
Mark Twain
Image
I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I’m not feeling so well myself.
Mark Twain
Image
When an audience does not complain, it is a compliment, and when it does, it is a compliment, too, if unaccompanied by violence.
Mark Twain