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Mark Twain Quotes
637 Wit, Wisdom, and Humor to Inspire and Entertain

Discover the wit and wisdom of Mark Twain, America's beloved author. From inspiring success to clever human insights, our quotes capture Twain's humor and brilliance, inspiring and entertaining you.

Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was an acclaimed American writer and humorist. He is known as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced" and was hailed by William Faulkner as the "father of American literature". Twain's notable works include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and Pudd'nhead Wilson. Additionally, he co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today with Charles Dudley Warner.

Raised in Hannibal, Missouri, Twain drew inspiration from his hometown for his famous novels. Before finding success as an author, he worked as a printer and typesetter and contributed articles to his brother's newspaper. Twain later became a renowned riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before venturing west to join his brother in Nevada. His early journalism career included writing for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. It was there that he gained international recognition with his humorous story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". Known for his wit and satire, Twain garnered praise from critics and influential figures alike. Despite facing financial difficulties due to unsuccessful investments, including one in a mechanical typesetter called Paige Compositor, Twain eventually paid off all his debts. Interestingly, he predicted that he would die when Halley's Comet returned; true to his words, he passed away a day after the comet's closest approach to Earth.

✵ 30. November 1835 – 21. April 1910   •   Other names Samuel Langhorne Clemens
Mark Twain photo

Works

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain: 637   quotes 788   likes

Famous Mark Twain Quotes

“Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”

Mark Twain book Following the Equator

Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. LXVI
Following the Equator (1897)

“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.”

Mark Twain

“If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Notebook entry, January or February 1894, Mark Twain's Notebook, ed. Albert Bigelow Paine (1935), p. 240 http://books.google.com/books?id=DjBVlb7cBSIC&pg=PA240
Variant: If you tell the truth you do not need a good memory!
Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain quote: “Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”

“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”

Mark Twain

Mark Twain Quotes about time

“Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.”

Mark Twain

Alternate (also Twain's): Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Source: Mark Twain's Notebook (1935), p. 393

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

Mark Twain

Not by Twain, but from Edward Abbey's A Voice Crying In The Wilderness (1989).
Misattributed

“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

“When a child turns 12, he should be kept in a barrel and fed through the bunghole, until he reaches 16 … at which time you plug the bunghole.”

Mark Twain

Attributed to Twain but never sourced, this quotation should not be regarded as authentic.
Misattributed

“A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell — mouths mercy, and invented hell — mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!”

Mark Twain book The Mysterious Stranger

The Mysterious Stranger (1916)

Mark Twain: Trending quotes

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”

Mark Twain

Variant of this quote "The best way to cheer yourself is to cheer somebody else up." is misattributed to Albert Einstein.
Source: According Quote Investigator Mark Twain did write a version of this saying in a personal notebook in 1896, and it was published by 1935 in “Mark Twain’s Notebook”. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/12/21/cheer-somebody/

Happy , Life , Positive , Way

Mark Twain Quotes

“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

Mark Twain

Variant: Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

People , Stupidity

“Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.”

Mark Twain
Mark Twain quote: “If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.”

“If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.”

Mark Twain

No known source in Twain's works.
The earliest known source is a Usenet post from November 2000 https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=israel.francophones/j_b0peHVcJw/YN5cG6Pdk6QJ.
Disputed

Reading

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

Mark Twain

Variant: Never let your schooling interfere with your education.

Motivational , Success , Funny , Deep

“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 man.”

Mark Twain

Variant: 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.

Dogs

“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
Dogs , Cats , Animals

“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

According to R. Ken Rasmussen in The Quotable Mark Twain (1998), this is most probably not Twain's.
Misattributed

Sun

“The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.”

Mark Twain

This appears on the opening placard of the film The Equalizer, attributing it to Twain, but there is no evidence that Twain wrote it. A precursor is found in Taylor Hartman's self-help book The Character Code (first published 1991), where it is not attributed to Twain: "The three most significant days in your life are: 1. The day you were born. 2. The day you find out why you were born. 3. The day you discover how to contribute the gift you were born to give" ( Google Books link https://books.google.com/books?id=gIKCxWxNmeMC&pg=PA147&dq=%22day+you+find+out+why%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwijrJzc84vLAhUJzGMKHajvADEQ6AEIIjAB#v=onepage&q=%22day%20you%20find%20out%20why%22&f=false)
Disputed

Life , Motivational

“It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”

Mark Twain

Cited as an example of "What Mark Twain Didn't Say" in Mark Twain by Geoffrey C. Ward, et al.
Misattributed
Variant: It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Stupidity , Appearance

“It's easy to make friends, but hard to get rid of them.”

Mark Twain

“Of all the creatures that were made he [man] is the most detestable. Of the entire brood he is the only one — the solitary one — that possesses malice. That is the basest of all instincts, passions, vices — the most hateful…He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain…Also — in all the list he is the only creature that has a nasty mind.”

Mark Twain

Vol. II, p. 7
Mark Twain's Autobiography (1924)

Pain , Hate , Sport , Passion

“"Classic." A book which people praise and don't read.”

Mark Twain book Following the Equator

Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. XXV
Following the Equator (1897)

People , Books , Reading

“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

Not found in Twain's works, this was attributed to him in Reader's Digest (September 1939): no prior attribution known. Mark Twain’s father died when Twain was eleven years old.
Disputed
Variant: When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

Father's Day , For Father , Boy , Learning

“It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog.”

Mark Twain

Anonymous American proverb; since 1998 this has often been attributed to Mark Twain on the internet, but no contemporary evidence of him ever using it has been located.
Variants:
It is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the fight in the dog that matters.
"Stub Ends of Thoughts" by Arthur G. Lewis, a collection of sayings, in Book of the Royal Blue Vol. 14, No. 7 (April 1911), cited as the earliest known occurrence in The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs, edited by Charles Clay Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder, and Fred R. Shapiro, p. 232
It is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the fight in the dog that wins.
Anonymous quote in the evening edition of the East Oregonian (20 April 1911)
What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight — it's the size of the fight in the dog.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, declaring his particular variant on the proverbial assertion in Remarks at Republican National Committee Breakfast (31 January 1958) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=11229
Misattributed

Courageous , Attitude , Dogs , Fight

“Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it is the sickening grammar that they use.”

Mark Twain book A Tramp Abroad

A Tramp Abroad (1880)
Context: You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does -- but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use.

People , Cats , Thinking , Fight

“A home without a cat — and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat — may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?”

Mark Twain book Pudd'nhead Wilson

Source: Pudd'nhead Wilson

Home , Cats , Perfection

“When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction.”

Mark Twain

Source: Who Is Mark Twain?

Love , Cats

“I wish I could make him understand that a loving good heart is riches enough, and that without it intellect is poverty.”

Mark Twain

Source: The Diary of Adam and Eve

Love , Understanding , Heart

“It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.”

Mark Twain
Love , Star

“An honest politician is an oxymoron.”

Mark Twain

“The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Christian Science (1907)
Context: When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious matters. When a thoughtful and unblessed Mohammedan examines the Westminster Catechism, he knows that beyond any question I am spiritually insane. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can prove anything to a lunatic — for that is a part of his insanity and the evidence of it. He cannot prove to me that I am insane, for my mind has the same defect that afflicts his. All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it; none but the Republicans and Mugwumps know it. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats and Mugwumps can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

Perfection

“That's the difference between governments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do.”

Mark Twain book A Tramp Abroad

Source: A Tramp Abroad

“We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that the savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter.”

Mark Twain book A Tramp Abroad

A Tramp Abroad (1880)

Feeling

“When I was a boy a farmer's wife who lived five miles from our village had great fame as a faith-doctor—that was what she called herself. Sufferers came to her from all around, and she laid her hand upon them and said, "Have faith—it is all that is necessary," and they went away well of their ailments. She was not a religious woman, and pretended to no occult powers. She said that the patient's faith in her did the work. Several times I saw her make immediate cures of severe toothaches. My mother was the patient. In Austria there is a peasant who drives a great trade in this sort of industry, and has both the high and the low for patients. He gets into prison every now and then for practising without a diploma, but his business is as brisk as ever when he gets out, for his work is unquestionably successful and keeps his reputation high. In Bavaria there is a man who performed so many great cures that he had to retire from his profession of stage-carpentering in order to meet the demand of his constantly increasing body of customers. He goes on from year to year doing his miracles, and has become very rich. He pretends to no religious helps, no supernatural aids, but thinks there is something in his make-up which inspires the confidence of his patients, and that it is this confidence which does the work, and not some mysterious power issuing from himself.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Source: Christian Science (1907), Ch. 4

Faith , Confidence , Boy , Business

“Within the last quarter of a century, in America, several sects of curers have appeared under various names and have done notable things in the way of healing ailments without the use of medicines. There are the Mind Cure, the Faith Cure, the Prayer Cure, the Mental Science Cure, and the Christian-Science Cure; and apparently they all do their miracles with the same old, powerful instrument—the patient's imagination. Differing names, but no difference in the process. But they do not give that instrument the credit; each sect claims that its way differs from the ways of the others.

They all achieve some cures, there is no question about it; and the Faith Cure and the Prayer Cure probably do no harm when they do no good, since they do not forbid the patient to help out the cure with medicines if he wants to; but the others bar medicines, and claim ability to cure every conceivable human ailment through the application of their mental forces alone. There would seem to be an element of danger here. It has the look of claiming too much, I think. Public confidence would probably be increased if less were claimed.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Book I, Ch. 4
Christian Science (1907)

Faith , Way , Confidence , Imagination

“The Jew has his other side. He has some discreditable ways, though he has not a monopoly of them… He has a reputation for various small forms of cheating, and for practising oppressive usury, and for burning himself out to get the insurance, and for arranging cunning contracts which leave him an exit but lock the other man in, and for smart evasions which find him safe and comfortable just within the strict letter of the law, when court and jury know very well that he has violated the spirit of it.”

Mark Twain book Concerning the Jews

Concerning the Jews (Harper's Magazine, Sept. 1899)

Law , Way , Cheating

“A gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years.”

Mark Twain book A Tramp Abroad

A Tramp Abroad (1880)

Learning , Personality

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain

This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but the attribution cannot be verified. The quote should not be regarded as authentic. — Twainquotes http://www.twainquotes.com/Discovery.html
Actually from the 1990 book P. S. I Love You' https://books.google.com/books?id=5OORXU6rlGIC&q=bowlines#v=onepage&q=bowlines&f=false' by H. Jackson Brown.
Misattributed

Courageous , Success , Life , Dreams

“No one doubts—certainly not I—that the mind exercises a powerful influence over the body. From the beginning of time, the sorcerer, the interpreter of dreams, the fortune-teller, the charlatan, the quack, the wild medicine-man, the educated physician, the mesmerist, and the hypnotist have made use of the client's imagination to help them in their work. They have all recognized the potency and availability of that force. Physicians cure many patients with a bread pill; they know that where the disease is only a fancy, the patient's confidence in the doctor will make the bread pill effective.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Book I, Ch. 4 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3187/3187-h/3187-h.htm#link2HCH0004
Christian Science (1907)

Education , Disease , Dreams , Exercises

“It is not worth while to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible.”

Mark Twain

Mark Twain in Eruption: Hitherto Unpublished Pages About Men and Events (1940) edited by Bernard DeVoto

History

“The minority is always in the right. The majority is always in the wrong.”

Mark Twain

Attributed to Twain, but never sourced. Suspiciously close to "A minority may be right, and the majority is always in the wrong." — Henrik Ibsen "Enemy of the People," as well as a famous quote from Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard
Misattributed

“Some German words are so long that they have a perspective. Observe these examples:

Freundschaftsbezeigungen.
Dilletantenaufdringlichkeiten.
Stadtverordnetenversammlungen.
These things are not words, they are alphabetical processions. And they are not rare; one can open a German newspaper any time and see them marching majestically across the page,—and if he has any imagination he can see the banners and hear the music, too. They impart a martial thrill to the meekest subject. I take a great interest in these curiosities. "Whenever I come across a good one, I stuff it and put it in my museum. In this way I have made quite a valuable collection. When I get duplicates, I exchange with other collectors, and thus increase the variety of my stock. Here are some specimens which I lately bought at an auction sale of the effects of a bankrupt bric-a-brac hunter:

Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen.
Alterthumswissenschaften.
Kinderbewahrungsanstalten.
Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen.
Wiederherstellungsbestrebungen.
Waffenstillstandsunterhandlungen.
Of course when one of these grand mountain ranges goes stretching across the printed page, it adorns and ennobles that literary landscape,—but at the same time it is a great distress to the new student, for it blocks up his way; he cannot crawl under it, or climb over it or tunnel through it. So he resorts to the dictionary for help; but there is no help there. The dictionary must draw the line somewhere,—so it leaves this sort of words out. And it is right, because these long things are hardly legitimate words, but are rather combinations of words, and the inventor of them ought to have been killed.”

Mark Twain book A Tramp Abroad

A Tramp Abroad (1880)

Music , Way , Imagination , Mountain

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