Quote

Not a single right is indestructible: a new might can at any time abolish it, hence, man possesses not a single permanent right. God is Might (and He is shifty, malicious, and uncertain).

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
Right
Indestructible
Men
Abolish
Time
Possesses
Hence
Uncertain
Permanent
Single
Shifty
Might
Malicious

More quotes by Mark Twain

Image
We wish to learn all the curious, outlandish ways of all the different countries, so that we can show off and astonish people when we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our untraveled friends with our strange foreign fashions which we can't shake off.
Mark Twain
Image
Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience - 4000 critics.
Mark Twain
Image
That optimist of yours is always ready to turn hell's backyard into a play-ground.
Mark Twain
Image
Ethical man: A Christian holding four aces.
Mark Twain
Image
The pause - that impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words, howsoever felicitous, could accomplish it.
Mark Twain
Image
Conscience, man's moral medicine chest.
Mark Twain
Image
Every man has a secret ambition: To outsmart horses, fish and women.
Mark Twain
Image
There have been innumerable Temporary Seekers after the Truth-have you ever heard of a permanent one?
Mark Twain
Image
The calamity that comes is never the one we had prepared ourselves for.
Mark Twain
Image
For we were little Christian children and early learned the value of forbidden fruit.
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
The only certainties in life are death and taxes.
Mark Twain
Image
But death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness death was man’s best friend when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free.
Mark Twain
Image
Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.
Mark Twain
Image
What work I have done I have done because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn't have done it.
Mark Twain
Image
Wit and Humor - if any difference, it is in duration - lightning and electric light. Same material, apparently but one is vivid, and can do damage - the other fools along and enjoys elaboration.
Mark Twain
Image
There are two things nobody should ever have to watch being made, sausage and laws.
Mark Twain
Image
In my age, as in my youth, night brings me many a deep remorse. I realize that from the cradle up I have been like the rest of the race - never quite sane in the night.
Mark Twain
Image
All our acts, reasoned and unreasoned, are selfish
Mark Twain
Image
I think that the reason why we Americans seem to be so addicted to trying to get rich suddenly is merely because the opportunity to make promising efforts in that direction has offered itself to us with a frequency out of all proportion to the European experience.
Mark Twain