Mark Twain quotes

I can live for two months on a good compliment.

• 31
• praise

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.

• 30
• funny

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.

• 28
• bravery

Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.

• 27
• certainty

Adam was the luckiest man; he had no mother-in-law.

• 27
• family

I take my only exercise acting as a pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercise regularly.

• 27
• healthy

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

• 26
• words

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

• 23
• justice

Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: The one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it.

• 23
• marriage

Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.

• 23
• determination

History is strewn thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill, but a lie, well told, is immortal.

• 23
• history

Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.

• 22
• work

When I was fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have him around. When I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.

• 22
• ignorance

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered -- either by themselves or by others.

• 22
• genius

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

• 22
• health

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

• 22
• grief

A man cannot be made comfortable without his own approval.

• 22
• help

The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain't so.

• 21
• knowledge

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

• 21
• life

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

• 20
• world

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

• 20
• age

It is easier to stay out than get out.

• 19
• temptation

We are all alike, on the inside.

• 19
• equality

A lie can run around the world six times while the truth is still trying to put on its pants.

• 19
• deceptionlying

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of congress; but I repeat myself.

• 18
• congress

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

• 18
• gratitude

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.

• 18
• reform

Everyone is like a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

• 18
• secrets

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

• 18
• education

The human race has but one really affective weapon, and that is laughter.

• 17
• laughter

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it

• 17
• forgiveness

Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

• 17
• friends

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure.

• 16
• success

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.

• 16
• thunderstorms

Accident is the name of the greatest of all inventors.

• 15
• inventing

A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.

• 14
• habits

I was young and foolish then; now I am old and foolisher.

• 14
• fools

Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.

• 14
• truth

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.

• 14
• procrastination

We have the best government that money can buy.

• 14
• government

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

• 14
• smile

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

• 13
• reading

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

• 13
• weather

When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.

• 13
• anger

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.

• 13
• country

If man had created man, he would be ashamed of his performance.

• 13
• humanity

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

• 13
• deceptionlying

I refused to attend his funeral. But I wrote a very nice letter explaining that I approved of it.

• 13
• cynicism

You cannot depend on your judgments when your imagination is out of focus.

• 13
• imagination

There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.

• 13
• legacy

There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

• 13
• statistics

Necessity is the mother of taking chances.

• 13
• necessity

I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won t.

• 13
• deception

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.

• 13
• truth

All generalizations are false, including this one.

• 12
• funny

He liked to like people, therefore people liked him.

• 12
• recognition

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

• 12
• education

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

• 12
• asteroid

Do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.

• 11
• duty

To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler and less trouble.

• 11
• teaching

A banker is a fellow who lends his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

• 11
• banks

Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.

• 11
• evangelism

To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know, I've done it a thousand times.

• 11
• habits

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

• 11
• age

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.

• 10
• belief

If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.

• 10
• animals

I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.

• 10
• duel

Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.

• 10
• climate

Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.

• 10
• creativity

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.

• 10
• memory

There's always something about your success that displeases even your best friends.

• 10
• success

My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.

• 10
• books

The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one's clothes.

• 9
• age

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.

• 9
• birds

It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.

• 9
• opinion

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.

• 9
• humor

When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old.

• 9
• age

Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

• 9
• civilization

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

• 8
• knowledge

A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.

• 8
• expected

Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.

• 8
• learning

It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

• 8
• conversation

If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape hanging?

• 8
• murder

Never learn to do anything. If you don't learn, you will always find someone else to do it for you.

• 8
• learning

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

• 8
• imagination

There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it, and when he can.

• 8
• assumptions

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.

• 7
• habits

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.

• 7
• mother

In his private heart no man much respects himself.

• 7
• respect

Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.

• 7
• facts

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.

• 7
• success

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said it before.

• 7
• plagiarism

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

• 7
• america

Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.

• 7
• fashion

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog.

• 7
• prison

Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

• 7
• animals

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.

• 7
• morning

He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.

• 7
• futility

Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are economical in its use.

• 7
• authors

It was the schoolboy who said, Faith is believing what you know ain't so.

• 7
• faith

I would rather have my ignorance than another man's knowledge, because I have so much of it.

• 6
• ignorance

Principles aren't of much account anyway, except at election time. After that you hang them up to let them season.

• 6
• principles

I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey.

• 6
• evolution

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

• 6
• example

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing, but cabbage with a college education.

• 6
• training

Obscurity and competence: That is the life that is worth living.

• 6
• obscurity

We need not worry so much about what man descends from; it's what he descends to that shames the human race.

• 6
• success

Classic' - a book which people praise and don't read.

• 5
• books

When you cannot get a compliment in any other way pay yourself one.

• 5
• praise

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.

• 5
• censorship

There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.

• 5
• cowardiceweakness

Faith is believing what you know ain't so.

• 5
• faith

Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.

• 5
• alcohol

We like a man to come right out and say what he thinks, if we agree with him.

• 5
• thought

To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman.

• 5

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

• 5
• dissent

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

• 5
• laughter

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

• 5
• ancestry

If you have nothing to say, say nothing.

• 5
• speeches

Never do wrong when people are looking.

• 5
• right