Mark Twain Quotes

There is no such thing in man's nature as a settled and full resolve either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution.

Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is.

Human nature is evil, and goodness is caused by intentional activity.

Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.

The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.

I feel like humans, when you're faced with decisions, you can go up and down: duality.

A man's at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it. You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.

Everybody's got the potential for great good and great wrong in them, but it's the choices we make that define who we really are.

The deepest, the intelligible, part of the nature of man is that part which does not take refuge in causality, but which chooses in freedom the good or the bad.

Everythings a choice. Nobody's born good. Nobody's born evil. It's always a choice.

It's the age-old battle between mind and heart, which seldom want the same thing.

If any part of your uncertainty, is a conflict between your heart and your mind - follow your mind.

Even the most sadistic and destructive man is human, as human as the saint.

I like to believe that most human beings go about things with a point of view that they're just doing what they feel like they need to do at that time. Sometimes people make bad decisions, but it's not evil, not malicious.

Mankind's greatest gift... is that we have free choice.

There appears to be but two grand master passions or movers in the human mind, namely, love and pride. And what constitutes the beauty or deformity of a man's character is the choice he makes under which banner he determines to enlist himself. But there is a strong distinction between different degress in the same thing and a mixture of two contraries.

But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.

Who are the lunatics? The ones who see horror in the heart of their fellow humans and search for peace at any price? Or the ones who pretend they don't see what's going on around them? The world belongs either to lunatics or hypocrites. There are no other races on this earth. You must choose which one to belong to.

My heart says one thing. My head says another. Very hard to get your heart and head together in life.

Nobody makes me do anything I don't want to do. It's my decision. So the biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy.

Is man, indeed, a walrus at heart?

In the conduct of life we make use of deliberation to justify ourselves in doing what we want to do.

The heart of man is made to reconcile the most glaring contradictions.

Fairy tales begin with conflict because we all begin our lives with conflict. We are all misfit for the world, and somehow we must fit in, fit in with other people, and thus we must invent or find the means through communication to satisfy as well as resolve conflicting desires and instincts.

why human beings despise what is beautiful and good, and seek to destroy the things they need the most