Directory of Mark Twain's maxims, quotations, and various opinions:

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All conscientious scruples -- all generous feelings must give way to our inexorable duty -- which is to keep the public mind in a healthy state of excitement, and experience has taught us that blood alone can do this. - "A Duel Prevented," Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, August 2, 1863

AI image created by Barbara Schmidt

I learned to pull wires in the Washoe Legislature, & my experience is, that when a bill is to be put through a body like that, the only thing necessary to insure success is to get the reporters to log-roll for it. - Letter to Jane Clemens, September 25, 1864

AI image created by Barbara Schmidt

Illustration of Sam Clemens as reporter from ST. NICHOLAS, April 1916

THE MAKING OF A JOURNALIST Henry H. Ashton, a Virginia City capitalist, has in his library richly bound in crushed Levant, those early volumes of the Virginia City Enterprise, to which Mark Twain contributed. The faded pages contain innumerable specimens of the famous writer's quaint humor. Mr. Ashton often points out the first paragraph that Mark Twain wrote on his arrival in Virginia City. The paragraph runs: "A thunderstorm made Beranger a poet, a mother's kiss made Benjamin West a painter and a salary of $15 a week makes us a journalist." - Dallas Morning News, November 17, 1907, p. 4. (I am indebted to Michael Marleau for bringing this item to my attention.)

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