Mark Twain Quotes

We judge of entire nations by the productions of a few mechanical arts, and think we are talking of men, while we are boasting of their estates, their dress, and their palaces. The sense in which we apply the terms, great, and noble, high rank, and high life, show, that we have, on such occasions, transferred the idea of perfection from the character to the equipage; and that excellence itself is, in our esteem, a mere pageant, adorned at a great expense, by the labors of many workmen.

Fashion is nothing more than the temporary custom of rich and idle people who make it their principal business to study the external elegance of life.

Shoes for men are about elegance or wealth, they are not playing with the inner character. That is why women are happy to wear painful shoes.

Luxury! more perilous to youth than storms or quicksand, poverty or chains.

There are honest journalists like there are honest politicians - they stay bought.

Clothes were terribly important in the '20s. They really were an arbiter of who you were and how much money you had: an indicator of social status.

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune, he had not the method of making a fortune.

I just don't feel much interested in the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

My interest in society - at times so pronounced that the word 'snob' comes a little to mind - derives from the fact that I like an immense number of things which society, money, and position bring in their train: painting, tapestries, rare books, smart dresses, dances, gardens, country houses, correct cuisine, and pretty women.

There's a lot to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all.

On the soft bed of luxury many kingdoms have expired.

What is there that money will not do?

Money doesn't buy class.

But you see, that's the gilded prison of fashion. We're riding in private jets, and meantime I was so incredibly, painfully sad and lonely.

Wealth conquered Rome after Rome had conquered the world.

Nigeria must be one of the very few countries in the world where a man’s source of wealth is of no concern to his neighbors, the public or the government. Once a man is able to dole out money, the churches pray for him, he collects chieftancy titles and hobnobs with those who govern. The message to those who have not made it is clear: just be rich, the ways and means are irrelevant

I can buy any man in the world.

[Describing John F. Kennedy:] The enviably attractive nephew who sings an Irish ballad for the company and then disappears before the table-clearing and dishwashing begin.

To fulfill his double social function of non-producer and over-consumer, the capitalist was not only obliged to violate his modest taste, to lose his laborious habits of two centuries ago and to give himself up to unbounded luxury, spicy indigestibles and syphilitic debauches, but also to withdraw from productive labor an enormous mass of men in order to enlist them as his assistants.

Editorialists who tell downright lies in order to advance their own agendas do more to discredit the press than all the censors in the world.

Nothing is quite so wretchedly corrupt as an aristocracy which has lost its power but kept its wealth

When you have an almost unlimited amount of money, you can pay people to do almost anything.

I've never been impressed by somebody who came in with a crocodile bag, you know?

The media has a key role to play in ending corruption.

Essentially, Louis XIV created exclusivity. If we look at how we live our lives today, many of us are members of clubs or gyms. We search out exclusivity. He created the world of fashion at Versailles.