Mark Twain Quotes

Grant is of medium stature, yet has a well-developed physique, sandy whiskers and moustache, blue eyes, earnest, thoughtful, and far-seeing, a cigar in his mouth, a knife in one hand, and a stick in the other, which he is whittling to a point. He whittles slowly towards him. His thoughts are not yet crystallized. His words are few. Suddenly he commences upon the other end of the stick, and whittles energetically from him. His mind is made up,--his plan matured. He is less reticent,--talks freely. He is dressed in plain blue; and were it not for the three stars upon his shoulder, few would select him as the Lieutenant-General commanding all the armies of the Union in the field.

Grant has immense responsibilities upon him, should he fail here, his past reputation will be dimmed, and he shelved again; but if he succeeds now, he will be in the flood tide of success at the death of the rebellion; and will stand peerless in the annals of American Generals.

I don't think I have ever done anything for this age of children before, a pre-school audience. Generally speaking, we don't have vivid memories of that age and what influenced us, yet clearly they are hugely formative years and it's really important that we can create television of a high quality for that audience.

When my editors and I at 'Rolling Stone' came up with the idea to do a profile of General McChrystal, I simply just e-mailed General McChrystal's press staff, said we wanted to do a profile, and said if you could give us any time to hang out with the general, that would be great.

A boy cannot begin playing ball too early. I might almost say that while he is still creeping on all fours he should have a bouncing rubber ball.

I was about two years old when I first started drawing recognizable characters.

Babies have millions of brain cells. They are like light bulbs waiting to be turned on. Don't wait for them to go to school and hope for the best.

Putting babies as young as two weeks into child care for the first year of their life, for 60 hours a week, will cause their brains damage.

When you're a kid, your first five or six years, you converge all the time. School is about training that out of you, especially universities.

Most of them are military commanders, country notables and landowners, and educated people. It is inconceivable that such a group should incline to the theory of Communism. But if Western countries persist in applying unjust pressure, they may well throw themselves into Russia’s arms.

Kissinger's orchestration of political and military and diplomatic cover for apartheid in South Africa presents us with a morally repulsive record and includes the appalling consequences of the destabilization of Angola

Mr. Lincoln is already beaten.…And we must have another ticket to save us.…If we had such a ticket as could be made by naming Grant, Butler, or Sherman for President…we could make a fight yet.

Life is too short to permit of wasting any portion of it in discussion with…anyone whose conception of the underlying principles of military administration is so hazy that he can advocate such proposition seriously. A proposition of this kind would be regarded as remarkable if advanced by a state militiaman.

Napoleon—mighty somnambulist of a vanished dream.

He has the best political mind of all the generals I have.

While General MacArthur had many of the attributes of a foreign sovereign ... and was quite as difficult as any, it did not seem wise to recognize him as one.

With all due respect, Mr. President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff don't know what they're talking about.

Pull no skulkers from under the ammunition wagon; take the tried and true old hero [Ulysses Grant]—with the Old Guard behind him who have never kept step to any music but the music of the Union.

The only difficulty I had in declaring war arose from the incompetency of the men to whom the principle management of it was to be given.

Who believes that a score of victories over Mexico, the annexation of half her provinces, will give us more Liberty, a purer Morality?

One Japanese soldier is worth ten Chinese.

If I save this Army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or any other persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army.

When [Ulysses S.] Grant once gets possession of a place he holds on to it as if he had inherited it.

Mr. [Jefferson] Davis was kindness personified and told me to go home and tell my parents that as soon as the Government established a naval school I should have one of the first appointments. I left the presence of the great man crestfallen and convinced that the Confederacy was doomed. I had come to fight, not to go to school. Had I not just left the greatest naval school in the world to avoid getting an education? And here the best they could offer me was a place in some makeshift academy that was to be erected in the future. I felt that I had been deceived and badly treated, and I mentally comforted myself with the assurance that I knew more about drill and tactics than the whole mob of civilian generals and colonels who thronged the capitol's corridors

What to do with Mr. Prima Donna, Brass hat, Five Star MacArthur. He's worse than the Cabots and the Lodges—they at least talked with one another before they told God what to do. Mc tells God right off. It is a very great pity we have to have Stuffed Shirts like that in key positions …. Don't see how a country can produce such men as Robert E. Lee, John Pershing, Eisenhower, Bradley and at the same time produce Custers, Pattons and McArthurs