Mark Twain Quotes
Enjoy the best of Mark Twain quotes for free. Quotes about life by Mark Twain, American Author.
We are all alike, on the inside.
All right, then, I’ll go to hell.
Communication, Adjectives, Learned
Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.
Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.
It is easier to stay out than get out.
Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.
All emotion is involuntary when genuine.
Better a broken promise than none at all.
The lack of money is the root of all evil.
Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
He is now rising from affluence to poverty.
There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
Optimist: day dreamer more elegantly spelled.
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
Prosperity is the best protector of principle.
We have the best government that money can buy.
I can live for two months on a good compliment.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.
There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.
All generalizations are false, including this one.
Man is the only animal that blushes – or needs to.
Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.
Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.
I never let schooling interfere with my education.
When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.
Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.
Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.
‘Classic.’ A book which people praise and don’t read.
A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
I’ve never let my school interfere with my education.
Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man’s, I mean.
The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
Honesty is the best policy – when there is money in it.
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.
The more you explain it, the more I don’t understand it.
Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.
A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.
Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.
Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.
Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.
When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.
Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
Man was made at the end of the week’s work, when God was tired.
A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
There is no distinctly American criminal class – except Congress.
Don’t say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.
I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Everything has its limit – iron ore cannot be educated into gold.
To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.
Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Laws control the lesser man… Right conduct controls the greater one.
A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.
I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.
The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.
When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.
There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.
My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
When red-haired people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.
Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives.
It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.
The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.
Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.
How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing, nobody had said it before.
The educated Southerner has no use for an ‘r’, except at the beginning of a word.
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
I never smoke to excess – that is, I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.
If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but deteriorate the cat.
There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered – either by themselves or by others.
The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.
It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.
Let us endeavor so to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.
Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.
Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.
I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any.
A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.
The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.
I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.
If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.
Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.
Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.
My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.
Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial ‘we.’
When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.
Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.
Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.
Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.
Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.
The Christian’s Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.
What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.
Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.
The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.
Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.
The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.
Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.
Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.
When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.
It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.
Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.
I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.
It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one – keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.
Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.
The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.
Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.
There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.
The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – ’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.
If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.
As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake.
It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
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