Mark Twain Quotes

Travel is fatal to prejudice bigotry and narrow-mindedness.

~ Mark Twain

There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land again after a cheerful careless voyage.

~ Mark Twain

I have too much respect for the truth to drag it out on every trifling occasion.

~ Mark Twain

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

~ Mark Twain

In certain trying circumstances urgent circumstances desperate circumstances profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.

~ Mark Twain

I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so that it will not only interest boys but strongly interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges the audience.

~ Mark Twain

Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.

~ Mark Twain

T[he rules of writing] require that the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it.

~ Mark Twain

T[he rules of writing] require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.

~ 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. All day long, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, not those of other things, are his history. These are his life, and they are not written. Everyday would make a whole book of 80,000 words -- 365 books a year. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man -- the biography of the man himself cannot be written.

~ Mark Twain

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

~ Mark Twain

Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.

~ Mark Twain

Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.

~ 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

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.

~ Mark Twain

A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.

~ Mark Twain

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

~ Mark Twain

It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.

~ Mark Twain

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.

~ Mark Twain

Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.

~ Mark Twain

Man was made at the end of the week's work, when God was tired.

~ Mark Twain

In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.

~ 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

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

~ 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

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one - keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.

~ 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

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.

~ 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

India has 2,000,000 gods and worships them all. In religion, all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire.

~ Mark Twain

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

~ Mark Twain

Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.

~ Mark Twain

I never smoke to excess - that is, I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time.

~ Mark Twain

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.

~ Mark Twain

Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.

~ Mark Twain

We have the best government that money can buy.

~ Mark Twain

Prosperity is the best protector of principle.

~ Mark Twain

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

~ Mark Twain