Pudd'nhead Wilson Quotes

“Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple’s sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.”

“When ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles, but in showers.”

“As to the adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.”

“Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so.

“Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”

“The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with commoner things. It is chief of this world’d luxuries, king by grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took: we know it because she repented.”

“There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous and shallow: Yet it was the schoolboy who said ‘Faith is believing what you know ain’t so’.”

“All say, ‘how hard it is that we have to die’ -- a strange complaint to come from the mouths of those who have had to live.”

“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”

“Behold, the fool saith, “Put not all thine eggs in the one basket” - which is but a matter of saying, “Scatter your money and your attention”; but the wise man saith, “Pull all your eggs in the one basket and - WATCH THAT BASKET.”

“There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.”

“A home without a cat — and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat — may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?”

“Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

“October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.”