Top Quotes from Mark Twain


About Mark Twain

Mark Twain, the literary luminary who spun tales as rich and winding as the very riverbanks of his beloved Mississippi, remains a cherished beacon of wisdom, wit, and camaraderie. Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30, 1835, in the picturesque town of Florida, Missouri, Twain's legacy is one of laughter, insight, and a warm embrace of the human experience.

Twain's language was an artful blend of the colloquial and the profound, a reflection of his deep connection to the rhythms of everyday speech. His words had a soothing familiarity, like an old friend's voice recounting tales of days gone by. Through his novels and essays, Twain bridged the gap between generations, creating a timeless conversation that still resonates with readers young and old.

In Mark Twain's literary legacy, we find more than books; we find a cozy corner of the world where the human spirit is celebrated, flaws and all. His stories are not just ink on paper; they are invitations to connect, to smile, and to revel in the shared journey of existence. Twain's warmth transcends the pages, reminding us that literature is a bridge that connects hearts across time, inviting us to join the chorus of laughter and reflection that has echoed through the years.


Mark Twain Quotes


“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” 
― Mark Twain

 

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.” 
― Mark Twain

 

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” 
― Mark Twain




“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”
― Mark Twain




“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain



“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
― Mark Twain



“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
― Mark Twain


“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.”
― Mark Twain



“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.”
― Mark Twain




“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.”
― Mark Twain



“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.”
― Mark Twain



“'Classic'–a book which people praise and don’t read.”
― Mark Twain



“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
― Mark Twain



“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”
― Mark Twain



“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn't.”
― Mark Twain




“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
― Mark Twain



“Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life.”
― Mark Twain



“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”
― Mark Twain


“The funniest things are forbidden.”
― Mark Twain



“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
― Mark Twain



“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”
― Mark Twain


“There are no people who are quite so vulgar as the over-refined.”
― Mark Twain


“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”
― Mark Twain



“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
― Mark Twain



“When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.”
― Mark Twain



“You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
― Mark Twain



“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
― Mark Twain


“In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.”
― Mark Twain



“Buy land, they're not making it anymore.”
― Mark Twain



“Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.”
― Mark Twain



“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.”
― Mark Twain



“If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.”
― Mark Twain


“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”
― Mark Twain



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



“You can’t reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.”
― Mark Twain



“Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.”
― Mark Twain



“The only very marked difference between the average civilized man and the average savage is that the one is gilded and the other is painted.”
― Mark Twain



“I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.”
― Mark Twain


“The secret of success is making your vocation your vacation.”
― Mark Twain



“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.”
― Mark Twain



“What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.”
― Mark Twain



“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”
― Mark Twain



“Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.”
― Mark Twain



“The lack of money is the root of all evil.”
― Mark Twain



“Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.”
― Mark Twain



“Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.”
― Mark Twain



“The trouble is not in dying for a friend, but in finding a friend worth dying for.”
― Mark Twain



“Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.”
― Mark Twain



“It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”
― Mark Twain



“Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.”
― Mark Twain



“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”
― Mark Twain



“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.”
― Mark Twain



“No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the presence of ladies.”
― Mark Twain



“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.”
― Mark Twain



“The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.”
― Mark Twain



“Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom.”
― Mark Twain


“Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
― Mark Twain



“Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.”
― Mark Twain



“What do we call love, hate, charity, revenge, humanity, forgiveness? Different results of the master impulse, the necessity of securing one’s self-approval.”
― Mark Twain



“Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.”
― Mark Twain



“Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.”
― Mark Twain



“The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad.”
― Mark Twain



“Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.”
― Mark Twain



“A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.”
― Mark Twain



“You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?”
― Mark Twain



“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
― Mark Twain



“When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”
― Mark Twain


“The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.”
― Mark Twain



“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.”
― Mark Twain



“History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
― Mark Twain



“To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.”
― Mark Twain



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



“A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.”
― Mark Twain




“Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.”
― Mark Twain



“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
― Mark Twain



“Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.”
― Mark Twain



“Worrying is like paying a debt you don't owe.”
― Mark Twain



“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.”
― Mark Twain



“Write what you know.”
― Mark Twain



“Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.”
― Mark Twain


“Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.”
― Mark Twain



“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times.”
― Mark Twain



“Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile.”
― Mark Twain



“Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.”
― Mark Twain



“I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
― Mark Twain



“It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.”
― Mark Twain


“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”
― Mark Twain



“I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.”
― Mark Twain



“Explore. Dream. Discover.”
― Mark Twain



“Necessity is the mother of taking chances.”
― Mark Twain



“When angry, count four. When very angry, swear.”
― Mark Twain



“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
― Mark Twain



“I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places.”
― Mark Twain



“Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.”
― Mark Twain



“Write without pay until somebody offers to pay.”
― Mark Twain



“To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.”
― Mark Twain



“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.”
― Mark Twain



“Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”
― Mark Twain


“Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”
― Mark Twain



“I must have a prodigious amount of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up!”
― Mark Twain



“They did not know it was impossible so they did it.”
― Mark Twain



“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.”
― Mark Twain



“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”
― Mark Twain



“Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.”
― Mark Twain




“Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.”
― Mark Twain



“Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.”
― Mark Twain



“There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.”
― Mark Twain



“Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.”
― Mark Twain



“Success is a journey, not a destination. It requires constant effort, vigilance and reevaluation.”
― Mark Twain




“Don’t dream your life, but live your dream.”
― Mark Twain



“When in doubt tell the truth.”
― Mark Twain



“Do not complain about growing old. It is a privilege denied to many.”
― Mark Twain



“Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.”
― Mark Twain









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