262 Quotes by Mark Twain

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old.
But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul.
Better a broken promise than none at all.
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation.
Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
Buy land, they're not making it anymore.
A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.
George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.
Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
Familiarity breeds contempt - and children.
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.
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've done it thousands of times.
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.
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.
Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.
Everything has its limit - iron ore cannot be educated into gold.
As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
Don't let schooling interfere with your education.
Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
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, don't tell them where they know the fish.
Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.
If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.
I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.
I never let schooling interfere with my education.
If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.
I've never let my school interfere with my education.
A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
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.
Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.
All right, then, I'll go to hell.
If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.
I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.
He is now rising from affluence to poverty.
I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.
Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.
I can live for two months on a good compliment.
Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.
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 friends in both places.
I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.
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 make it a rule never to smoke while I'm sleeping.
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.
We are all alike, on the inside.
We have the best government that money can buy.
What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.
What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.
What would men be without women? Scarce, sir, mighty scarce.
When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.
When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.
When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.
When in doubt tell the truth.
When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.
When red-haired people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.
We Americans... bear the ark of liberties of the world.
When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.
Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so.
There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress.
There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.
Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.
There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.
Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.
Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.
There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.
Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
The educated Southerner has no use for an 'R', except at the beginning of a word.
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.
The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
Such is the human race, often it seems a pity that Noah... didn't miss the boat.
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.
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
Prosperity is the best protector of principle.
Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.
The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it.
Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial "we."
Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
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.
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.
The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.
The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.
The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
The Public is merely a multiplied "me."
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.
Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.
The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.
One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives.
The lack of money is the root of all evil.
The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.
The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.
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.
Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.
Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.
Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress.
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.
It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.
In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
It is easier to stay out than get out.
Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.
It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.
Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.
No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.
Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.
Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to.
Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.
My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.
'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read.
Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.
By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.
Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Strength comes not from perfection, but from perseverance in the face of imperfection.
Kindness is a language the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Our lives are defined by the choices we make, not the circumstances we're dealt.
The secret to getting ahead is getting started.
True strength is not measured by how much you can take, but by how much you can give.
Never underestimate the power of kindness, for it is the language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Be the change you wish to see in the world, for true power lies in the hands of those who dare to dream differently.
True bravery is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to act in spite of it.
Kindness is a language that the deaf can hear, and the blind can see.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started, even if the path ahead seems daunting.
Be the light in someone's darkness, for kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Be kind to yourself and others, for kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started
Always choose kindness, for it is the language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Kindness is a language that even the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.
The secret to getting ahead is getting started
Choose kindness, it is the language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
They say kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear, and the blind can see.
Kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see
Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Kindness is the language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Forgiveness is the perfume that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
It is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.
When in doubt, be kind - kindness is a language the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Actions speak louder than words.
In the end, we regret the chances we didn't take.
Choose kindness, for it is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
Action speaks louder than words.
To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence
Choose kindness, for it is the language the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Believe in yourself, for no one else will do it for you.
The secret of getting ahead is to get started.
Choose kindness, for it is the language that deaf can hear and blind can see.
History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes.
In the end, we only regret the chance we didn't take.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
Not all who wander are lost, some are just aggressively checking for WiFi connections in new places.
Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
Sail away from the safe harbor. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Sarcasm is my love language, and I'm practically fluent.
Success is when preparation meets opportunity, or when the coffee finally kicks in.
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear- not absence to fear.
If you want to be 100% sure of coming first, run in a race by yourself.
Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the best fruit is?
Success isn't just what you accomplish in your life, but what you inspire others to do.
Read every day like it's your secret alphabets’ treasure map—it helps you uncover hidden spots in the _knowledge universe_ that you didn’t even know existed!
Success is like a ladder — you can't climb with your hands in your pockets, unless it's a very short ladder!
Success is like a snowball; it just doesn't stop rolling until it hits an ego.
Success is like receiving a popup ad; it’s annoying but guarantees at least one person will click on your dreams.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started—and don’t forget to leave some clever breadcrumbs.
Success is the art of being spontaneous on a schedule.
Success is just failure that didn’t have a good PR team.
Success is like an onion; you have to peel back layers of clichés before you reach the motivational sweetness inside.
Success is the gentle art of avoiding blame.
Success is the sweetest revenge offered on a velvet tray sprinkled with ash!
Success is the best teacher, but failures are usually less expensive than tuition.
Success is like a lit candle; the farther you hold it from your face, the brighter it shines.
The only record you should never break is the one you set by daring to be yourself.
Success is just failure you didn't get mad at.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started; train your ambition to not just chase goals but to embrace the journey.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics

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