Mark Twain Quotes
Best quotes by the American Author Mark Twain
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Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.
It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.
Don't let schooling interfere with your education.
Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.
Laughter is the greatest weapon we have and we, as humans, use it the least.
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Fueling your body is a process... The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
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 friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.
The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company.
I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell -- you see, I have friends in both places.
Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.
A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme a lot
If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.
There isn't a single human characteristic that can be safely labeled as American.
The most interesting information come from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
I can live for two months on a good compliment.
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Mark Twain's Quotes About
Go to table of contentsMark Twain humor quotes
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Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company.
The most interesting information come from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.
I take my only exercise acting as a pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercise regularly.
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.
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.
But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.
Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.
The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.
Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.
I must have a prodigious amount of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up!
What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey.
Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.
To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin
That makes calamity of so long life;
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.
Wit and Humor -- if any difference, it is in duration -- lightning and electric light. Same material, apparently; but one is vivid, and can do damage -- the other fools along and enjoys elaboration.
Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.
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.
Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.
From: More Maxims of Mark
Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
Familiarity breeds contempt and children.
A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
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Mark Twain truth quotes
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If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.
Often the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.
Truth is neither alive nor dead; it just aggravates itself all the time.
No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the presence of ladies.
I never could tell a lie that anybody would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.
When in doubt tell the truth.
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so.
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Mark Twain death quotes
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I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.
Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
The report of my death was an exaggeration.
All say, How hard it is that we have to die -- a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born --a hundred million years --and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together. There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume, when the opportunity comes.
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.
We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Adam, the first great benefactor of the human race: he brought death into the world.
We never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead -- and not then until we have been dead years and years. People ought to start dead and then they would be honest so much earlier.
Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
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Mark Twain education quotes
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Don't let schooling interfere with your education.
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
I said there was nothing so convincing to an Indian as a general massacre. If he could not approve of the massacre, I said the next surest thing for an Indian was soap and education. Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run; because a half-massacred Indian may recover, but if you educate him and wash him, it is bound to finish him some time or other.
All schools, all colleges, have two great functions: to confer, and to conceal, valuable knowledge. The theological knowledge which they conceal cannot justly be regarded as less valuable than that which they reveal. That is, when a man is buying a basket of strawberries it can profit him to know that the bottom half of it is rotten.
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
I've never let my school interfere with my education.
Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
I never let schooling interfere with my education.
Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
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Mark Twain life quotes
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Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
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. All day long, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, not those of other things, are his history. These are his life, and they are not written. Everyday would make a whole book of 80,000 words -- 365 books a year. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man -- the biography of the man himself cannot be written.
Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thought that is forever flowing through one's head.
The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
Plain question and plain answer make the shortest road out of most perplexities.
A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle; ...they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble for little mean advantages over each other; age creeps upon them; infirmities follow; ...those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to aching grief. It comes at last--the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them--and they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence, ...a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever.
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.
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More quotes by Mark Twain
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Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
I take my only exercise acting as a pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercise regularly.
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.
Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
Adam was the luckiest man; he had no mother-in-law.
History is strewn thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill, but a lie, well told, is immortal.
Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: The one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it.
Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.
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.
Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered -- either by themselves or by others.
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain't so.
A man cannot be made comfortable without his own approval.
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of congress; but I repeat myself.
A lie can run around the world six times while the truth is still trying to put on its pants.
The human race has but one really affective weapon, and that is laughter.
Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
We are all alike, on the inside.
Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
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.
Everyone is like a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it
We have the best government that money can buy.
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure.
It is easier to stay out than get out.
Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.
Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect.
A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.
Accident is the name of the greatest of all inventors.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won t.
If man had created man, he would be ashamed of his performance.
You cannot depend on your judgments when your imagination is out of focus.
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.
I refused to attend his funeral. But I wrote a very nice letter explaining that I approved of it.
Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
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.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
I was young and foolish then; now I am old and foolisher.
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.
Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.
Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.
To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know, I've done it a thousand times.
When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.
Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.
All generalizations are false, including this one.
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 man.
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.
Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
The report of my death was an exaggeration.
There's always something about your success that displeases even your best friends.
To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler and less trouble.
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.
When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old.
Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
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.
Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.
It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession, but carrying a banner.
If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape hanging?
He liked to like people, therefore people liked him.
Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.
The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one's clothes.
It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.
There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it, and when he can.
A banker is a fellow who lends his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up.
He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.
Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Never learn to do anything. If you don't learn, you will always find someone else to do it for you.
It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.
Noise proves nothing, Often a hen who has laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.
Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.
A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.
Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.
Everyone is a moon,and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are economical in its use.
I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey.
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.
Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.
What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said it before.
We need not worry so much about what man descends from; it's what he descends to that shames the human race.
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.
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.
You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
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.
To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman.
Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
Faith is believing what you know ain't so.
It was the schoolboy who said, Faith is believing what you know ain't so.
I would rather have my ignorance than another man's knowledge, because I have so much of it.
Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
Obscurity and competence: That is the life that is worth living.
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