Quote

Happiness ain't a thing in itself -it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant. And so, as soon as the novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it ain't happiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh.

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
Something
Pleasant
Laughter
Soon
Longer
Joy
Dulled
Happiness
Novelty
Force
Contrast
Thing
Fresh

More quotes by Mark Twain

Image
As for the dinosaur - But Noah's conscience was easy it was not named in his cargo list and he and the boys were not aware that there was such a creature. He said he could not blame himself for not knowing about the dinosaur, because it was an American animal and America had not then been discovered.
Mark Twain
Image
A habit cannot be tossed out the window it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.
Mark Twain
Image
We adore titles and heredities in our hearts and ridicule them with our mouths. This is our democratic privilege.
Mark Twain
Image
Ours is the land of the free-nobody denies that-nobody challenges it. (Maybe it is because we won't let other people testify.)
Mark Twain
Image
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.
Mark Twain
Image
The only people who should use the possessive 'we' are kings, newspaper editors, and persons with tapeworms.
Mark Twain
Image
Frankness is a jewel only the young can afford it.
Mark Twain
Image
We take a natural interest in novelties, but it is against nature to take an interest in familiar things.
Mark Twain
Image
To me [Edgar Allen Poe's] prose is unreadable—like Jane Austin's [sic]. No there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.
Mark Twain
Image
Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.
Mark Twain
Image
So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked.
Mark Twain
Image
There is nothing so annoying as to have two people talking when you're busy interrupting.
Mark Twain
Image
Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them.
Mark Twain
Image
I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the lower animals (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me.
Mark Twain
Image
We write frankly and freely, but then we modify before we print.
Mark Twain
Image
If we would learn what the human race really is at bottom, we need only observe it in election times.
Mark Twain
Image
We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain
Image
Let your secret sympathies and your compassion be always with the under dog in the fight -- this is magnanimity but bet on the other one -- this is business.
Mark Twain
Image
A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law.
Mark Twain
Image
All good things arrive unto them that wait - and don't die in the meantime.
Mark Twain