Mark Twain Quotes

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637 Wit, Wisdom, and Humor to Inspire and Entertain

“Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.”

“Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.”

“Comparison is the death of joy.”

“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.”

“Write what you know.”

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

“We may not pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents.”

“Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.”

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

“The lack of money is the root of all evil.”

“There isn’t time--so brief is life--for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving--and but an instant, so to speak, for that.”

“Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.”

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”

“Good judgement is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement.”

“It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want—oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”

“Familiarity breeds contempt — and children.”

“The older I get, the more clearly I remember things that never happened.”

“There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous and shallow: Yet it was the schoolboy who said "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."”

“April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four..”

“Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessaries.”

“Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.”

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.”

“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.”

“There is nothing so annoying as having two people talking when you're busy interrupting.”

“Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.”

“It usually takes me two or three days to prepare an impromptu speech.”

“Adam, at Eve's grave: Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden.”

“Do something everyday that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.”

“Jim said that bees won't sting idiots, but I didn't believe that, because I tried them lots of times myself and they wouldn't sting me.”

“The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it”

“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”

“Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.”

“Distance lends enchantment to the view.”

“Honesty: The best of all the lost arts.”

“Drag your thoughts away
from your troubles…
by the ears, by the heels,
or any other way you can manage it.”

“Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.”

“for business reasons, I must preserve the outward signs of sanity.”

“In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.”

“Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.”

“Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain’t got no business doing wrong when he ain’t ignorant and knows better.”

“There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.”

“While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats.”

“Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”

“I take my only exercise acting as pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercised regularly.”

“The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.”

“I couldn't bear to think about it; and yet, somehow, I couldn't think about nothing else.”

“When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.”

“To me [Edgar Allen Poe's] prose is unreadable—like Jane Austin's [sic]. No there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.”

“It is easier to stay out than to get out.”