Mark Twain
Quotes by Mark Twain
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
— Mark Twain
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
— Mark Twain
Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
— Mark Twain
Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
— Mark Twain
When angry, count to four when very angry, swear.
— Mark Twain
The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
— 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
We have the best government that money can buy.
— Mark Twain
Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.
— Mark Twain
It is not best that we should all think alike it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.
— Mark Twain
Prosperity is the best protector of principle.
— Mark Twain
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
— Mark Twain
It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
— Mark Twain
Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.
— Mark Twain
A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
— Mark Twain
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
— Mark Twain
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
— 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
I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
— Mark Twain
The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
— Mark Twain
Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
— Mark Twain
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
— Mark Twain
Don't let schooling interfere with your education.
— Mark Twain
I've never let my school interfere with my education.
— Mark Twain
Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
— Mark Twain
Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
— Mark Twain
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
— Mark Twain
I never let schooling interfere with my education.
— Mark Twain
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
— Mark Twain
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
— Mark Twain
Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
— Mark Twain
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed 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
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
All generalizations are false, including this one.
— Mark Twain
By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.
— Mark Twain
Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.
— Mark Twain
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
— Mark Twain
Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
— Mark Twain
Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
— Mark Twain
I can live for two months on a good compliment.
— Mark Twain
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
— Mark Twain
It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
— Mark Twain
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
— Mark Twain
Thunder is good, thunder is impressive but it is lightning that does the work.
— Mark Twain
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
— Mark Twain
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
— Mark Twain
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
— Mark Twain
There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
— Mark Twain
To be good is noble but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
— Mark Twain
What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.
— Mark Twain
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
— Mark Twain
Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
— Mark Twain
Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.
— Mark Twain
My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.
— Mark Twain
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
— Mark Twain
My books are like water those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.
— 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
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
— 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 very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
— Mark Twain
Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
— Mark Twain
Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.
— 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
The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow there is no humor in Heaven.
— 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
You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
— 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
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
— Mark Twain
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
— Mark Twain
To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.
— Mark Twain
What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.
— Mark Twain
When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.
— Mark Twain
Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation.
— Mark Twain
The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.
— Mark Twain
The lack of money is the root of all evil.
— Mark Twain
The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
— Mark Twain
Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
— Mark Twain
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress but I repeat myself.
— Mark Twain
Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
— Mark Twain
When people do not respect us we are sharply offended yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.
— Mark Twain
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
— Mark Twain
The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.
— Mark Twain
All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.
— Mark Twain
A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
— 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
A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.
— Mark Twain
I have made it a rule never to smoke more that one cigar at a time.
— Mark Twain
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
— Mark Twain
It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
— Mark Twain
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
— Mark Twain
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities Truth isn't.
— Mark Twain
When in doubt tell the truth.
— Mark Twain
Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
— Mark Twain
Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so.
— Mark Twain
Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
— Mark Twain
Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
— 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
Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
— Mark Twain