Portrait of Clemens, circa 1880

PROMISES

I never could keep a promise. I do not blame myself for this weakness, because the fault must lie in my physical organization. It is likely that such a very liberal amount of space was given to the organ which enables me to make promises that the organ which should enable me to keep them was crowded out. But I grieve not. I like no half-way things. I had rather have one faculty nobly developed than two faculties of mere ordinary capacity.
- The Innocents Abroad

To make a pledge of any kind is to declare war against nature; for a pledge is a chain that is always clanking and reminding the wearer of it that he is not a free man.
- Following the Equator

To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.
- Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Better a broken promise than none at all.
- More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927