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» Quotes by Mark Twain »
'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read.
'Don't you worry, and don't you hurry.' I know that phrase by heart, a...
A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shinin...
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting ...
A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in n...
Experience
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.
A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He ...
Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often
Adam and Eve had many advantages but the principal one was that they e...
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't mat...
Age
All generalizations are false, including this one.
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die" - a strange complaint to...
Death
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then succes...
All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.
Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off the...
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is st...
Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul.
Better a broken promise than none at all.
Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography ...
But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the commo...
Religion
By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.
Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessitie...
Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on soci...
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
Deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pra...
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
Do something everyday that you don't want to do; this is the golden ru...
Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you...
Life
Don't let schooling interfere with your education.
Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exis...
Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.
Don't tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, d...
Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heel...
Duties are not performed for duty's sake, but because their neglect wo...
Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong...
Patriotism
Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
Everything has its limit - iron ore cannot be educated into gold.
Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not...
Humor
Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
Familiarity breeds contempt - and children.
Familiarity breeds contempt. How accurate that is. The reason we hold ...
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good exam...
Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heal that ha...
Forgiveness
From his cradle to his grave a man never does a single thing which has...
George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishm...
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I'...
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
Going to law is losing a cow for the sake of a cat.
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves an...
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal li...
Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you ...
Have a place for everything and keep the thing somewhere else; this is...
He is now rising from affluence to poverty.
He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring...
Heaven is by favor; if it were by merit your dog would go in and you w...
Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.
Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.
Humor
Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, al...
Humor
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them...
I am different from Washington. I have a higher, grander standard of p...
I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that ...
I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me th...
I can live for two months on a good compliment.
I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem...
I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approve...
Death
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have ...
I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I al...
I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals...
I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you...
I have made it a rule never to smoke more that one cigar at a time.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.
I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. ...
I make it a rule never to smoke while I'm sleeping.
I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a we...
Intelligence
I never let schooling interfere with my education.
I once sent a dozen of my friends a telegram saying 'flee at once - al...
I think a compliment ought to always precede a complaint, where one is...
I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I woul...
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I did...
I've never let my school interfere with my education.
Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to...
If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow...
If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deterio...
If to be interesting is to be uncommonplace, it is becoming a question...
If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any ot...
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bit...
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is...
In a museum in Havana there are two skulls of Christopher Columbus, "o...
In Boston they ask, how much does he know? In New York, how much is he...
In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circu...
Anger
In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come ...
In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never di...
In statesmanship get the formalities right, never mind about the moral...
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he ma...
Education
In the real world, nothing happens at the right place at the right tim...
In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of...
India has 2,000,000 gods, and worships them all. In religion, other co...
It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother ...
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you...
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no disti...
It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and...
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a ...
It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie ar...
It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three u...
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world a...
It is easier to stay out than get out.
It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with Chica...
It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb b...
It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of o...
It used to take me all vacation to grow a new hide in place of the one...
It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu ...
Business
It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderfu...
It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are ...
It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to mak...
It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight ...
Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly goo...
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people...
Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people ...
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see...
Last week I stated that this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever se...
Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.
Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be so...
Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so...
Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diam...
Life should begin with age and its privileges and accumulations, and e...
Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age o...
Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting...
Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man ...
Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul...
Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human ...
Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired...
Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to.
Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to...
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertisin...
Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.
Morals are an acquirement - like music, like a foreign language, like ...
Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not un...
My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed...
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name BZJXXLLWCP ...
Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.
Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles a...
Not until you become a stranger to yourself will you be able to make a...
Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate i...
Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boa...
Once you've put one of his [Henry James] books down, you simply can't ...
One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a...
Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, ...
Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the ri...
Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyrig...
Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and le...
Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he...
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecut...
Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
Politics
Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.
Prosperity is the best protector of principle.
Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know.
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Co...
Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.
She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what ...
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more ...
Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your edi...
Such is the human race, often it seems a pity that Noah... didn't miss...
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; ...
Politics
The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, b...
The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the...
The educated Southerner has no use for an 'R', except at the beginning...
The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual super...
The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully...
Death
The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the c...
The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 da...
The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and...
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in tha...
The kingly office is entitled to no respect. It was originally procure...
The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nin...
The man that sets out to carry a cat by it's tail learns something tha...
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who...
The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optim...
The miracle, or the power, that elevates the few is to be found in the...
The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance...
The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink ...
The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are wrong. ...
The Public is merely a multiplied "me."
The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.
The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radica...
The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as ...
The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are ins...
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting ...
The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in...
The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to y...
The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning...
The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized, are secret...
The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
History
The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.
There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
There are many humorous things in the world: among them the white man'...
There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one - keep ...
There are people who think that honesty is always the best policy. Thi...
There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest ...
There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and ...
There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirab...
There is an old-time toast which is golden for its beauty. "When you a...
There is more real pleasure to be gotten out of a malicious act, where...
There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress.
There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.
Funny
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale ...
Science
There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossib...
Therein lies the defect of revenge: it's all in the anticipation; the ...
Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves...
Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does ...
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and n...
To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know beca...
To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than...
To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.
Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflowe...
Travel has no longer any charm for me. I have seen all the foreign cou...
Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, ex...
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged t...
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you...
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that...
Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even t...
Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.
We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our ...
We Americans are the lavishest and showiest and most luxury-loving peo...
We Americans... bear the ark of liberties of the world.
We are all alike, on the inside.
We are called the nation of inventors. And we are. We could still clai...
We are chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change place wi...
Change
We consider that any man who can fiddle all through one of those Virgi...
We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay o...
Religion
We had the sky up there, and we used to lay on our backs and look up a...
We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; ...
We have not all had the good fortune to be ladies. We have not all bee...
We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, be...
We never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves unti...
We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Adam, the first great benefactor of...
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that ...
Experience
What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody h...
What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The ...
What is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swe...
What ought to be done to the man who invented the celebrating of anniv...
What would men be without women? Scarce, sir, mighty scarce.
When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being...
When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.
Anger
When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know who h...
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly...
When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or n...
When in doubt tell the truth.
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stan...
Life
When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a s...
Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last y...
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to ...
Business
Where a blood relation sobs, an intimate friend should choke up, a dis...
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep...
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is be...
Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has ...
Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not ...
Words are only painted fire; a book is the fire itself.
Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of wh...
Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
Age
You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
Imagination