Mark Twain quotes

Born
November 30, 1835 Florida, Missouri, U.S.

Died
April 21, 1910.

Occupation
Writer, lecturer, entrepreneur, publisher.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, entrepreneur, publisher and lecturer.

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

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

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.
– 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

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

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

The educated Southerner has no use for an ‘r’, except at the beginning of a word.
– Mark Twain

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

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
– 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

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
– Mark Twain

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

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
– Mark Twain

Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.
– Mark Twain

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

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

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.
– Mark Twain

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
– Mark Twain

Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
– Mark Twain

Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.
– Mark Twain

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

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
– Mark Twain

If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.
– Mark Twain

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

Man was made at the end of the week’s work, when God was tired.
– 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

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

A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.
– Mark Twain

It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.
– Mark Twain

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

All right, then, I’ll go to hell.
– Mark Twain

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

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
– Mark Twain

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

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

Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.
– Mark Twain

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

Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
– Mark Twain

Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.
– Mark Twain

Honesty is the best policy – when there is money in it.
– Mark Twain

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
– Mark Twain

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

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

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
– Mark Twain

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

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

Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.
– Mark Twain

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

Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.
– Mark Twain

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.
– Mark Twain

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
– Mark Twain

The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.
– Mark Twain

How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing, nobody had said it before.
– Mark Twain

Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.
– Mark Twain

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

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
– Mark Twain

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

Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
– 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

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

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
– Mark Twain

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

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

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

If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but deteriorate the cat.
– Mark Twain

When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.
– Mark Twain

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

We have the best government that money can buy.
– Mark Twain

He is now rising from affluence to poverty.
– Mark Twain

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

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

George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.
– Mark Twain