He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.
— Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (1835–1910) · The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1876
Mehr von Mark Twain
- We have debauched America's honor and blackened her face before the world; but each detail was for the best. — To the Person Sitting in Darkness, 1901
- A gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. — A Tramp Abroad, 1880
- I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself, 'All right, then, I'll go to hell.' — Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1885