Pudd'nhead Wilson Quotes

April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.

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.

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

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?

There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous and shallow: Yet it was the schoolboy who said 'Faith is believing what you know ain't so'.

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.

When ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles, but in showers.

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.

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 Calendar

The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

A man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his story; in fact he has no story. He merely has some people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality, and he trusts he can plunge those people into those incidents with interesting results. So he goes to work. To write a novel? No--that is a thought which comes later; in the beginning he is only proposing to tell a little tale, a very little tale, a six-page tale. But as it is a tale which he is not acquainted with, and can only find out what it is by listening as it goes along telling itself, it is more than apt to go on and on and on till it spreads itself into a book. I know about this, because it has happened to me so many times.

As to the adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.

All say, ‘how hard it is that we have to die’ -- a strange complaint to come from the mouths of those who have had to live.

Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so. - Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with commoner things. It is chief of this world'd luxuries, king by grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took: we know it because she repented.

There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.

Wilson stopped and stood silent. Inattention dies a quick and sure death when a speaker does that.

Âdem, yalnızca bir insandı. Bu her şeyi açıklıyor. Elmayı, yemek için değil, yasak olduğu için istemişti. Asıl hata, yılanı yasaklamamış olmaktı. Çünkü o zaman onu yemek isteyecekti.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who have gone on to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.

There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and the three form a rising scale of compliment: 1, to tell him you have read one of his books; 2, to tell him you have read all of his books; 3, to ask him to let you read the manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you to his respect; No. 2 admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries you clear into his heart.

If I owned half of that dog, I would shoot my half.

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.

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;

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. —Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

THANKSGIVING DAY. Let us all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji.

All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"—a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

An enemy can partly ruin a man, but it takes a good-natured injudicious friend to complete the thing and make it perfect.

Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.

When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.

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. —Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

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.

A kindly courtesy does at least save one’s feelings, even if it is not professing to stand for a welcome.

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even      the undertaker will be sorry. —Pudd'nhead Wilson's      Calendar

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it. —Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

Ain't you my chile? En does you know anything dat a mother won't do for her chile? Day ain't nothin' a white mother won't do for her chile. Who made 'em so? De Lord done it. En who made de niggers? De Lord made 'em. In de inside, mothers is all de same. De good lord he made 'em so.

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.

. . . an enemy can partly ruin a man, but it takes a good-natured injudicious friend to complete the thing and make it perfect.

They read those playful trifles in the solidest terms, and decided without hesitancy that if there had ever been any doubt that Dave Wilson was a pudd’nhead — which there hadn’t — this revelation removed that doubt for good and all.

Ne kadar iyi ve nazik olursa olsun hiçbir kişilik yoktur ki -zayıf ve aptalca bile olsa- hicivle alt edilemesin. Mesela, merkep: Karakteri mükemmeldir, gösterişsiz hayvanlar içinde en mütevazı olanıdır ama bir de hiciv yüzünden başına gelene bakın. Biri bize merkep dediğinde bunu iltifat olarak görmek yerine şüpheye düşeriz.

Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson, “Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest,

October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February. —Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson