Mark Twain Quotes

I love my cigar too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while.

As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake.

I never smoke to excess - that is, I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time.

My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and the intervals between them.

I do not feel called upon to try to reform any person over 25 years of age because by that time the habit has been formed. Then it is only a question of the strength of will or mind of the smoker which will enable him to stop. He knows the injurious effects and controls his own destiny.

Those in middling circumstances, have less temptation—they are inclined by habit and the company with whom they associate, to set bounds to their passions and appetites—if this is not sufficient, the want of means to gratify them will be a restraint—they are obliged to employ their time in their respective callings—hence less substantial yeomanry of the country are more temperate, or better morals and less ambition than the great.

I don't drink, I don't smoke.

I smoke in moderation. Only one cigar at a time.

A man who can't bear to share his habits is a man who needs to quit them.

Cigars served me for precisely fifty years as protection and a weapon in the combat of life... I owe to the cigar a great intensification of my capacity to work and a facilitation of my self-control.

The best way to stop a bad habit is never to begin it.

Dr Parr...asked him, how he had acquired his power of smoking at such a rate? Lamb replied, 'I toiled after it, sir, as some men toil after virtue.'

Moderation is an ostentatious proof of our strength of character.

Remember, if you smoke after sex you're doing it too fast.

A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn't.

smoking had come to be an important punctuation mark in the long sentence of a day on the road.

A good man not only forbears those gratifications which are forbidden by reason and religion, but even restrains himself in unforbidden instances.

Unless the habit leads to happiness the best habit is to contract none.

...smoking is just a habit. 'Tolstoy', she said, mentioning someone I hadn't met, 'says that just as much pleasure can be got from twirling the fingers'. My impulse was to tell her Tolstoy was off his onion, but I choked down the heated words. For all I know, the man might be a bosom pal of hers and she might resent criticism of him, however justified.

In general, it can be said that no contemplative life is possible without ascetic self-discipline. One must learn to survive without the habit-forming luxuries which get such a hold on men today. I do not say that to be a contemplative one absolutely has to go without smoking or without alcohol, but certainly one must be able to use these things without being dominated by an uncontrolled need for them.

Indeed, moderation is my middle name (though I do not often use it in signing legal documents)

Exercise can't counteract the damage being done to your body while you continue to smoke. What exercise can do is help you kick the habit.

I have learned that if this is what I am going to do, and do it well, then I have to avoid drinking.

I will form good habits and become their slaves.

Like most people who smoked umpteen cigarettes a day, I tasted only the first one. The succeeding umpteen minus one were a compulsive ritual which had no greater savour than the fumes of burning money.