Mark Twain Quotes

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
-Mark Twain

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.
-Mark Twain

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

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

A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.
-Mark Twain

A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
-Mark Twain

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

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.
-Mark Twain

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
-Mark Twain

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

All generalizations are false, including this one.
-Mark Twain

All right, then, I'll go to hell.
-Mark Twain

All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.
-Mark Twain

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
-Mark Twain

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
-Mark Twain

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.
-Mark Twain

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
-Mark Twain

Buy land, they're not making it anymore.
-Mark Twain

By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.
-Mark Twain

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

Don't let schooling interfere with your education.
-Mark Twain

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

Don't tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish.
-Mark Twain

Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
-Mark Twain

Familiarity breeds contempt - and children.
-Mark Twain

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

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
-Mark Twain

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
-Mark Twain

Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.
-Mark Twain

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.
-Mark Twain

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

I can live for two months on a good compliment.
-Mark Twain

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
-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

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.
-Mark Twain

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress.
-Mark Twain

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
-Mark Twain

I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
-Mark Twain

I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.
-Mark Twain

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.
-Mark Twain

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.
-Mark Twain

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

It is easier to stay out than get out.
-Mark Twain

It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
-Mark Twain

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

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
-Mark Twain

It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
-Mark Twain

It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
-Mark Twain

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
-Mark Twain

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
-Mark Twain

Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.
-Mark Twain

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

Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.
-Mark Twain

Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.
-Mark Twain

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

Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
-Mark Twain

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
-Mark Twain

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
-Mark Twain

Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
-Mark Twain

Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to.
-Mark Twain

Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.
-Mark Twain

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
-Mark Twain

Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.
-Mark Twain

My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.
-Mark Twain

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

Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
-Mark Twain

Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
-Mark Twain

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
-Mark Twain

No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.
-Mark Twain

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
-Mark Twain

Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
-Mark Twain

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
-Mark Twain

Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
-Mark Twain

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

Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.
-Mark Twain

Prosperity is the best protector of principle.
-Mark Twain

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
-Mark Twain

Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.
-Mark Twain

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
-Mark Twain

Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
-Mark Twain

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.
-Mark Twain

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

The lack of money is the root of all evil.
-Mark Twain

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

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
-Mark Twain

The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.
-Mark Twain

The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it.
-Mark Twain

The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.
-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

The Public is merely a multiplied "me."
-Mark Twain

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.
-Mark Twain

The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
-Mark Twain

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

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

The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.
-Mark Twain

The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.
-Mark Twain

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
-Mark Twain

The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.
-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

There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
-Mark Twain

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one - keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.
-Mark Twain

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

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.
-Mark Twain

There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.
-Mark Twain

There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress.
-Mark Twain

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.
-Mark Twain

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

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

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

To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.
-Mark Twain

To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.
-Mark Twain

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so.
-Mark Twain