Mark Twain Quotes

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I was looking over a piece I came across dealing with quotes from a wide variety of people - Andy Rooney, and the like - when I got to thinking about who were the most quoted and quotable people there are. First one that came to mind was Mark Twain, so I did a bit of digging in several places and came up with a few lists and merged them into one. Man, this guy was prolific! Hope you find something here of interest. The man sure had a good handle on a lot of things.

Mark Twain Quotes

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Write without pay until somebody offers to pay you. If nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for.

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.

People born to be hanged are safe in water.

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

Man is the only animal that blushes, or needs to.

Only presidents, editors and people with tapeworm have the right to use the editorial 'we'.

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.

You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

I don't give a damn for a man who can spell a word only one way.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.

All kings is mostly rapscallions.

It is not best that we all should think alike, it is differences of opinion that make horse races.

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.

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself.

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

Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said, "I don't know.”

Familiarity breeds contempt - and children.

It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either.

It is better to deserve honours and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

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.

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.

I have a higher and greater standard of principle. Washington could not lie. I can lie but I won't.

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.

I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.

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

I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

Get your facts first and then you can distort them as much as you wish.

Golf is a good walk spoiled.

I refused to attend his funeral. But I wrote a very nice letter explaining that I approved of it.

The Bible has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.

It takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

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

Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.

Wagner's music is better than it sounds.

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read.

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

There is nothing so annoying as to have two people talking when you're busy interrupting.

When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But, when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.

Let us endeavour to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

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

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

The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity.

The principle of give and take is the principle of diplomacy - give one and take ten.

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

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

I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.

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.

My books are water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) Everybody drinks water.

Faith is believing what you know ain't so.

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

I admire the serene assurance of those who have religious faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.

An uneasy conscience is a hair in the mouth.

All the talk used to be about doing people good, now it is about doing people.

At 50 a man can be an ass without being an optimist but not an optimist without being as ass.

Always acknowledge a fault frankly.

This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you opportunity to commit more.

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.

Better a broken promise than none at all.

Benefit of clergy: Half-rate on the railroad.

The burnt child shuns the fire. Until next day.

Balloon: Thing to take meteroric observations and commit suicide with.

By and by when each nation has 20,000 battleships and 5,000,000 soldiers we shall all be safe and the wisdom of statesmanship will stand confirmed.

Circumstances make man, not man circumstances.

Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessaries.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.

Do your duty today and repent tomorrow.

Do good when you can, and charge when you think they will stand it.

Difference between savage and civilized man: one is painted, the other gilded.

Do not put off till tomorrow what can be put off till day-after-tomorrow just as well.

Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish.

Etiquette requires us to admire the human race.

Everybody's private motto: It's better to be popular than right.

Every man is wholly honest to himself and to God, but not to any one else.

Geological time is not money.

Good wine needs no bush; a jug is the thing.

God's noblest work? Man. Who found it out? Man.

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

Golden rule: Made of hard metal so it could stand severe wear, it not being known at that time that butter would answer.

Honesty was the best policy.

Honesty: The best of all the lost arts.

Heroine: Girl who is perfectly charming to live with, in a book.

Have a place for everything and keep the thing somewhere else.

This is not advice, it is custom.

Heroine: Girl in a book who is saved from drowning by a hero and marries him next week, but if it was to be over again ten years later it is likely she would rather have a life-belt and he would rather have her have it.

Hero: Person in a book who does things which he can't and girl marries him for it.

It is wiser to find out than to suppose.

In literature imitations do not imitate.

Nice list Bumper, I have a whole book "The Wit and Wisdom" of Mark Twain. I'll add a few stinging insults:

"He is dead and buried now, though; let him rest, let him rot. Let his vices be forgotten, but his virtues be remembered; it will not infringe much upon any man's time."

"I do not believe I could ever learn to like her except on a raft at sea with no other provisions in sight."

On Cecil Rhodes: "I admire him. I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake."

On a book by Herny James: "Once you put it down, you simply can't pick it up."

On a former editor: "He has been dead a quarter of a century now. My bitterness against him has faded away and disappeared. I feel only compassion for him and if I could send him a fan I would