Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in 1835, was an influential American writer and humorist, renowned as the “greatest humorist the United States has produced.” His notable works include “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (1876) and its sequel, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (1884), often dubbed the “Great American Novel.” Twain, raised in Hannibal, Missouri, drew inspiration from his experiences as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi, shaping his narrative in “Life on the Mississippi” (1883). Despite initial setbacks in mining and entrepreneurship, he gained fame with the humorous story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (1865). Twain’s wit and satire, evident in both fiction and non-fiction, garnered international acclaim. While facing financial challenges due to failed investments, he rebounded with the support of Henry Huttleston Rogers. Twain died in 1910, fulfilling his prediction of passing during Halley’s Comet appearance, leaving a lasting legacy in American literature.
Mark Twain Quotes
1. “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
— Mark Twain
2. “The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”
— Mark Twain
3. “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
— Mark Twain
4. “Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.”
— Mark Twain
5. “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
— Mark Twain
6. “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
— Mark Twain
7. “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.”
— Mark Twain
8. “Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”
— Mark Twain
9. “Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.”
— Mark Twain
10. “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
— Mark Twain
11. “Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
— Mark Twain
12. “Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.”
— Mark Twain
13. “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
— Mark Twain
14. “Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.”
— Mark Twain
15. “Write what you know.”
— Mark Twain
16. “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
17. “If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it.”
— Mark Twain
18. “To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.”
— Mark Twain
19. “Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company.”
— Mark Twain
20. “Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”
— Mark Twain
21. “Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.”
— Mark Twain
22. “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.”
— Mark Twain
23. “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
— Mark Twain
24. “Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”
— Mark Twain
25. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
— Mark Twain
26. “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
— Mark Twain
27. “Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.”
— Mark Twain
28. “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
— Mark Twain
29. “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
— Mark Twain
30. “Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
— Mark Twain
31. “Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile.”
— Mark Twain
32. “Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.”
— Mark Twain
33. “It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.”
— Mark Twain
34. “A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.”
— Mark Twain
35. “I’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”
— Mark Twain
36. “Explore. Dream. Discover.”
— Mark Twain
37. “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
38. “Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.”
— Mark Twain
39. “When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.”
— Mark Twain
40. “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
— Mark Twain
41. “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
42. “Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
— Mark Twain
43. “God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”
— Mark Twain
44. “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
— Mark Twain
45. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.”
— Mark Twain
46. “Write without pay until somebody offers to pay.”
— Mark Twain
47. “I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.”
— Mark Twain
48. “Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”
— Mark Twain
49. “In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.”
— Mark Twain
50. “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”
— Mark Twain
51. “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.”
— Mark Twain
52. “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.”
— Mark Twain
53. “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”
— Mark Twain
54. “But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?”
— Mark Twain
55. “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
— Mark Twain
56. “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
— Mark Twain
57. “Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.”
— Mark Twain
58. “They did not know it was impossible so they did it.”
— Mark Twain
59. “Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.”
— Mark Twain
60. “In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.”
— Mark Twain
61. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”
— Mark Twain
62. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
— Mark Twain
63. “The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”
— Mark Twain
64. “Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.”
— Mark Twain
65. “Success is a journey, not a destination. It requires constant effort, vigilance, and reevaluation.”
— Mark Twain
66. “Just because you’re taught that something’s right and everyone believes it’s right, it doesn’t make it right.”
— Mark Twain
67. “Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
— Mark Twain
68. “The trouble is not in dying for a friend, but in finding a friend worth dying for.”
— Mark Twain
69. “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.”
— Mark Twain
70. “Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.”
— Mark Twain
71. “Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”
— Mark Twain
72. “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
— Mark Twain
73. “The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.”
— Mark Twain
74. “Don’t dream your life, but live your dream.”
— Mark Twain
75. “The lack of money is the root of all evil.”
— Mark Twain
76. “A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.”
— Mark Twain
77. “Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”
— Mark Twain
78. “Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.”
— Mark Twain
79. “There is nothing so annoying as having two people talking when you’re busy interrupting.”
— Mark Twain
80. “In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.”
— Mark Twain
81. “When angry, count four. When very angry, swear.”
— Mark Twain
82. “Do not complain about growing old. It is a privilege denied to many.”
— Mark Twain
83. “Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.”
— Mark Twain
84. “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.”
— Mark Twain
85. “Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.”
— Mark Twain
86. “Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts or happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever flowing through one’s head.”
— Mark Twain
87. “A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo and doesn’t.”
— Mark Twain
88. “Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.”
— Mark Twain
89. “Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.”
— Mark Twain
90. “The truth hurts, but silence kills.”
— Mark Twain
91. “No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.”
— Mark Twain
92. “Courage is not the lack of fear. It is acting in spite of it.”
— Mark Twain
93. “There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior, there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.”
— Mark Twain
94. “Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.”
— Mark Twain
95. “Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.”
— Mark Twain
96. “A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.”
— Mark Twain
97. “Don’t wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.”
— Mark Twain
98. “It’s easy to make friends, but hard to get rid of them.”
— Mark Twain
99. “The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it he knows too little.”
— Mark Twain
100. “Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress, but I repeat myself.”
— Mark Twain
101. “It usually takes me two or three days to prepare an impromptu speech.”
— Mark Twain
102. “My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.”
— Mark Twain
103. “Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life.”
— Mark Twain
104. “Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.”
— Mark Twain
105. “If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.”
— Mark Twain
106. “I have spent most of my life worrying about things that have never happened.”
— Mark Twain
107. “I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
— Mark Twain
108. “Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.”
— Mark Twain
109. “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.”
— Mark Twain
110. “When I am king they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved.”
— Mark Twain
111. “Life is short, break the rules.”
— Mark Twain
112. “Out of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most.”
— Mark Twain
113. “Data is like garbage. You’d better know what you are going to do with it before you collect it.”
— Mark Twain
114. “Synergy – the bonus that is achieved when things work together harmoniously.”
— Mark Twain
115. “Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.”
— Mark Twain
116. “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
— Mark Twain
117. “He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.”
— Mark Twain
118. “Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.”
— Mark Twain
119. “Of all God’s creatures, there is only one that cannot be made a slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.”
— Mark Twain
120. “Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”
— Mark Twain
121. “Good judgment is the result of experience and experience is the result of bad judgment.”
— Mark Twain
122. “Behind every successful man, there is a woman – And behind every unsuccessful man, there are two.”
— Mark Twain
123. “If you want to change the future, you must change what you’re doing in the present.”
— Mark Twain
124. “The secret of making progress is to get started.”
— Mark Twain
125. “Never miss an opportunity to shut up.”
— Mark Twain
126. “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.”
— Mark Twain
127. “We regret the things we don’t do more than the things we do.”
— Mark Twain
128. “When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.”
— Mark Twain
129. “A good lawyer knows the law; a clever one takes the judge to lunch.”
— Mark Twain
130. “Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.”
— Mark Twain
131. “A tax is a fine for doing well, a fine is a tax for doing wrong.”
— Mark Twain
132. “An open mind leaves a chance for someone to drop a worthwhile thought in it.”
— Mark Twain
133. “Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.”
— Mark Twain
134. “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”
— Mark Twain
135. “If you have nothing to say, say nothing.”
— Mark Twain
136. “I must have a prodigious amount of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up!”
— Mark Twain
137. “If I had more time, I would have written less.”
— Mark Twain
138. “Most men die at 27, we just bury them at 72.”
— Mark Twain
139. “It’s better to be an optimist who is sometimes wrong than a pessimist who is always right.”
— Mark Twain
140. “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
141. “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”
— Mark Twain
142. “Go to bed early, get up early-this is wise.”
— Mark Twain
143. “To stand still is to fall behind.”
— Mark Twain
144. “Knowledge becomes wisdom only after it has been put to good use.”
— Mark Twain
145. “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
— Mark Twain
146. “A person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was getting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and wasn’t ever going to grow dim or doubtful.”
— Mark Twain
147. “When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Kentucky, because everything there happens 20 years after it happens anywhere else.”
— Mark Twain
148. “Prediction is difficult- particularly when it involves the future.”
— Mark Twain
149. “Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of itself.”
— Mark Twain
150. “The world doesn’t owe you anything. It was here first.”
— Mark Twain
151. “Good exercise for the heart: reach out and help your neighbor.”
— Mark Twain
152. “To someone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
— Mark Twain
153. “I was educated once – it took me years to get over it.”
— Mark Twain
154. “Great things can happen when you don’t care who gets the credit.”
— Mark Twain
155. “A half-truth is the most cowardly of lies.”
— Mark Twain
156. “I’m in favor of progress; it’s change I don’t like.”
— Mark Twain
157. “A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.”
— Mark Twain
158. “Some of the worst things in my life never even happened.”
— Mark Twain
159. “India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only.”
— Mark Twain
160. “There is no security in life, only opportunity.”
— Mark Twain
161. “One must travel, to learn.”
— Mark Twain
162. “Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.”
— Mark Twain
163. “To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.”
— Mark Twain
164. “The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.”
— Mark Twain
165. “You can’t reason someone out of something that they weren’t reasoned into in the first place.”
— Mark Twain
166. “The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.”
— Mark Twain
167. “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.”
— Mark Twain
168. “The inability to forget is far more devastating than the inability to remember.”
— Mark Twain
169. “Don’t wait the time is never just right.”
— Mark Twain
170. “A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”
— Mark Twain
171. “You meet people who forget you. You forget people you meet. But sometimes you meet those people you can’t forget. Those are your ’friends.”
— Mark Twain
172. “Warm summer sun, shine kindly here. Warm southern wind, blows softly here. Green sod above, lie light, lie light. Good night, dear Heart, Good night, good night.”
— Mark Twain
173. “It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.”
— Mark Twain
174. “The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”
— Mark Twain
175. “Some people get an education without going to college. The rest get it after they get out.”
— Mark Twain
176. “Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.”
— Mark Twain
177. “There is no such thing as a new idea. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.”
— Mark Twain
178. “Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”
— Mark Twain
179. “We are all ignorant; just about different things.”
— Mark Twain
180. “If you want love and abundance in your life, give it away.”
— Mark Twain
181. “There are only two types of speakers in the world. 1. The nervous and 2. Liars.”
— Mark Twain
182. “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
— Mark Twain
183. “Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”
— Mark Twain
184. “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
185. “When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”
— Mark Twain
186. “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”
— Mark Twain
187. “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”
— Mark Twain
188. “Supposing is good, but finding out is better.”
— Mark Twain
189. “There is nothing to be learned from the second kick of a mule.”
— Mark Twain
190. “The average woman would rather have beauty than brains because the average man can see better than he can think.”
— Mark Twain
191. “A German joke is no laughing matter.”
— Mark Twain
192. “There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy bad principles and recreate good ones; it can lift men to angelship.”
— Mark Twain
193. “How far we travel in life matters far less than those we meet along the way.”
— Mark Twain
194. “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
195. “I can live for two months on a good compliment.”
— Mark Twain
196. “Never have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.”
— Mark Twain
197. “Some people give their problems swimming lessons instead of drowning them.”
— Mark Twain
198. “Make your vacation your vocation.”
— Mark Twain
199. “When everyone is looking for gold, it’s a good time to be in the pick and shovel business.”
— Mark Twain
200. “Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.”
— Mark Twain
