Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.
- Topic: Common Sense, Communication
- Location: Zion National Park
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from Mark Twain
Life does not consist of facts. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever flowing through one's head.
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more.
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg crackles as if she had laid an asteroid.
More Quotes from Zion National Park
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A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.
Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.
Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in few words
People all over the nation are starved for honesty and common sense.
Talk of mysteries! Think of our life in nature—daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it—rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! The actual world! The common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?
Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things.
Much reading is an oppression of the mind, and extinguishes the natural candle, which is the reason of so many senseless scholars in the world.
Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.
Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.
The greatest gift I can give is to see, hear, understand and touch another person. When this is done, I feel contact has been made.
On his tongue they pour sweet dew, and from his mouth flow gentle words.
Born, n. a person who talks when you wish him to listen.
We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.
People don’t get along because they fear each other. People fear each other because they don’t know each other. They don’t know each other because they have not properly communicated with each other.
People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.
