Quotes by Mark Twain

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella 
when the sun is shining, but wants it back 
the minute it begins to rain.
~Mark Twain~

A human being has a natural desire 
to have more of a good thing than he needs.
~Mark Twain~

A lie can travel halfway around the world 
while the truth is putting on its shoes.
~Mark Twain~

A man cannot be made comfortable 
without his own approval.
~Mark Twain~

A man's house burns down. 
The smoking wreckage represents 
only a ruined home that was dear 
through years of use and pleasant associations. 
By and by, as the days and weeks go on, 
first he misses this, then that, 
then the other thing. And when he casts 
about for it he finds that it was in that house. 
Always it is an essential -- there was 
but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. 
It was in that house. It is irrevocably lost. 
It will be years before the tale of 
lost essentials is complete, 
and not till then can he truly know 
the magnitude of his disaster.
~Mark Twain~ 

A powerful agent is the right word. 
Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words 
in a book or newspaper the resulting effect is 
physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.
~Mark Twain~

Accident is the name of
the greatest of all inventors.
~Mark Twain~

Adam was the only man who, 
when he said a good thing, 
knew that nobody had said it before him.
~Mark Twain~

Against the assault of laughter 
nothing can stand.
~Mark Twain~ 

All say, how hard it is that we have to die -- 
a strange complaint to come from the mouths 
of people who have had to live.
~Mark Twain~ 

Always acknowledge a fault. 
This will throw those in authority off their guard 
and give you an opportunity to commit more.
~Mark Twain~

Always do right. 
This will gratify some people
and astonish the rest.
~Mark Twain~ 

An average English word is 
four letters and a half. By hard, 
honest labor I've dug all the large words 
out of my vocabulary and shaved it down 
till the average is three and a half... 
I never write "metropolis" for seven cents, 
because I can get the same money for "city." 
I never write "policeman," because I can get the same price for "cop."
~Mark Twain~

An enemy can partly ruin a man, 
but it takes a good-natured injudicious friend 
to complete the thing and make it perfect.
~Mark Twain~

An Englishman is a person who does things 
because they have been done before. 
An American is a person who does things 
because they haven't been done before.
~Mark Twain~

Be careful about reading health books. 
You may die of a misprint.
~Mark Twain~

Be good and you will be lonely. 
~Mark Twain~

Both marriage and death ought
to be welcome: The one promises
happiness, doubtless the other assures it. 
~Mark Twain~

Buy land. They've stopped making it.
~Mark Twain~

By common consent of all the nations 
and all the ages the most valuable thing 
in this world is the homage of men, 
whether deserved or undeserved. 
~Mark Twain~

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

Courage is resistance to fear, 
mastery of fear -- not absence of fear. 
~Mark Twain~

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
~Mark Twain~

Do something every day that you don't want to do; 
this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit 
of doing your duty without pain.
~Mark Twain~

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

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

Don't part with your illusions. 
When they are gone you may still exist, 
but you have ceased to live.
~Mark Twain~

Eloquence is the essential thing
in a speech, not information.
~Mark Twain~

Etiquette requires us to admire the human race. 
~Mark Twain~ 

Faith is believing what you know ain't so.
~Mark Twain~

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. 
Truth isn't.
~Mark Twain~

Forget and forgive. 
This is not difficult when properly understood. 
It means forget inconvenient duties, 
then forgive yourself for forgetting. 
By rigid practice and stern determination, 
it comes easy.
~Mark Twain~ 

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

Habit is habit and not to be flung 
out of the window by any man, 
but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.
~Mark Twain~

How little a thing can make us happy 
when we feel that we have earned it.
~Mark Twain~

Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.
~Mark Twain~

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. 
The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments 
slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.
~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~

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

I can teach anybody how to get 
what they want out of life. 
The problem is that I can't find anybody 
who can tell me what they want.
~Mark Twain~ 

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

I find that principles have no real force 
except when one is well fed.
~Mark Twain~ 

I have never let my schooling 
interfere with my education. 
~Mark Twain~

I have not a particle of confidence 
in a man who has no redeeming vices. 
~Mark Twain~

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

I thoroughly disapprove of duels. 
If a man should challenge me, 
I would take him kindly and forgivingly 
by the hand and lead him to a quiet place 
and kill him.
~Mark Twain~

If man had created man, 
he would be ashamed of his performance. 
~Mark Twain~

If you have nothing to say, say nothing. 
~Mark Twain~

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.
~Mark Twain~

If you tell the truth 
you don't have to remember anything.
~Mark Twain~

....in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, 
it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.
~Mark Twain~

It is better to deserve honors and not have them 
than to have them and not to deserve them.
~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~

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

It takes your enemy and your friend, 
working together, to hurt you: the one to slander you, 
and the other to get the news to you.
~Mark Twain~

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

Let us so live that when we come to die 
even the undertaker will be sorry.
~Mark Twain~

Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, 
of facts and happenings. 
It consists mainly of the storm of thought 
that is forever flowing through one's head.
~Mark Twain~

Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest
of growths. No man or woman really knows what 
perfect love is until they have been
married a quarter of a century.
~Mark Twain~

Man will do many things to get himself loved; 
he will do all things to get himself envied.
~Mark Twain~ 

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture 
they do not understand, but the passages that bother me 
are those I do understand.
~Mark Twain~

My books are water; 
those of the great geniuses are wine -- 
everybody drinks water. 
~Mark Twain~

There comes a time in every rightly 
constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire 
to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.
~Mark Twain~ 

My father was an amazing man.
The older I got, the smarter he got.
~Mark Twain~

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, 
but I think she enjoyed it. 
~Mark Twain~

Switzerland is simply a large, lumpy, solid rock 
with a thin skin of grass stretched over it. 
~Mark Twain~

Never let formal education 
get in the way of your learning. 
~Mark Twain~

Obscurity and competence: 
That is the life that is worth living.
~Mark Twain~ 

On with dance, let joy be unconfined, is my motto....
~Mark Twain~ 

One of the striking differences between 
a cat and a lie is that the cat has only nine lives. 
~Mark Twain~

Our opinions do not really blossom into fruition 
until we have expressed them to someone else.
~Mark Twain~

Public opinion is held in reverence. 
It settles everything. 
Some think it is the voice of God. 
~Mark Twain~

Some people get an education
without going to college; the rest get
it after they get out.
~Mark Twain~

The best way to cheer yourself 
is to try to cheer someone else up.
~Mark Twain~

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

The holy passion of friendship 
is of so sweet and steady and loyal 
and enduring a nature that it will last 
through a whole lifetime, 
if not asked to lend money.
~Mark Twain~ 

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

The man who doesn't read good books 
has no advantage over the man who can't read them.
~Mark Twain~

The man who sets out to carry a cat
by its tail learns something that will always
be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.
~Mark Twain~

The man with a new idea 
is a crank until the idea succeeds. 
~Mark Twain~

The miracle, or the power, 
that elevates the few is to be found 
in their industry, application, and perseverance 
under the prompting of a brave, determined spirit.
~Mark Twain~

The old man laughed loud and joyously, 
shook up the details of his anatomy from head to foot, 
and ended by saying such a laugh was money in a man's pocket, 
because it cut down the doctor's bills like anything. 
~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 right word may be effective, 
but no word was ever as effective
as a rightly timed pause. 
~Mark Twain~

To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. 
I ought to know, I've done it a thousand times. 
~Mark Twain~

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

The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. 
The radical invents the views. 
When he has worn them out 
the conservative adopts them.
~Mark Twain~

The true charm of pedestrianism 
does not lie in the walking, or in the scenery, 
but in the talking. The walking is good to time 
the movement of the tongue by, 
and to keep the blood and the brain 
stirred up and active; the scenery and 
the woodsy smells are good to bear in upon 
a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm 
and solace to eye and soul and sense; 
but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk. 
~Mark Twain~

The worst loneliness 
is not to be comfortable with yourself.
~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~ 

There are several good protections against temptations, 
but the surest is cowardice.
~Mark Twain~

There is nothing so annoying as a good example!! 
~Mark Twain~

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

There's always something about your success 
that displeases even your best friends.
~Mark Twain~

Time cools, time clarifies; 
no mood can be maintained quite unaltered 
through the course of hours.
~Mark Twain~

To arrive at a just estimate of a 
renowned man's character one must judge it 
by the standards of his time, not ours.
~Mark Twain~

Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.
~Mark Twain~

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

We are discreet sheep; 
we wait to see how the drove is going, 
and then go with the drove.
~Mark Twain~ 

We do not deal in facts when
we are contemplating ourselves.
~Mark Twain~ 

We should be careful to get out of an experience 
only the wisdom that is in it -- and stop there; 
lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. 
She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again -- 
and that is well; but also she will never sit down on 
a cold one anymore. 
~Mark Twain~

What is the most rigorous law of our being? 
Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, 
or physical structure can stand still a year. 
It grows -- it must grow; nothing can prevent it.
~Mark Twain~

When I was fourteen, 
my father was so ignorant 
I could hardly stand to have him around. 
When I got to be twenty-one, 
I was astonished at how 
much he had learned in seven years.
~Mark Twain~ 

When in doubt, tell the truth.
~Mark Twain~

When one has tasted watermelon
he knows what the angels eat.
~Mark Twain~

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

When you ascend the hill of prosperity, 
may you not meet a friend. 
~Mark Twain~

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

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth
and grieve at a funeral? It is because we 
are not the person involved.
~Mark Twain~

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

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

song playing....Searchin' So Long

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