Mark Twain Quotes
page 6
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

A.F. Bradley, New York, steamboattimes.com used under Public domain. Colored and upscaled by quotepark.com / CC-BY-SA-4.0

Mark Twain: 637 quotes808 likes

Mark Twain Quotes

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

“Peace by persuasion has a pleasant sound, but I think we should not be able to work it. We should have to tame the human race first, and history seems to show that that cannot be done.”

“Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.”

"Taming the Bicycle" (1917)

“The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.”

“I do not like work even when someone else is doing it.”

“Never have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.”

“If everyone was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.”

“Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of itself.”

“One frequently only finds out how really beautiful a women is, until
after considerable acquaintance with her.”

“Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.”

“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.”

“I don't like to commit myself about Heaven and Hell, you see, I have friends in both places.”

“Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.”

Mark Twain's Notebook (1935)

“Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyne to git well agin.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“I once sent a dozen of my friends a telegram saying 'flee at once - all is discovered.' They all left town immediately.”

“What's the use you learning to do right when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it's the parts that I do understand.”

“Herodotus says, "Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects."”

Mark Twain book A Horse's Tale

Acknowledgements
Twain does not quote Herodotus here, he only sums up what he believes to have been Herodotus' approach to the writing of history. Nevertheless, this apocryphal statement is now often quoted as being the very words of Herodotus.
A Horse's Tale (1907)

“How little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have earned it.”

Source: The Diaries of Adam and Eve

“There are some few people I respect and admire, but I don't think much of the species.”

“Stars and shadows ain't good to see by.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“Humor is tragedy plus time.”

“If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.”

“Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.”

“You can't pray a lie -- I found that out.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“To believe yourself brave is to be brave; it is the one only essential thing.”

Source: Joan of Arc

“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”

“The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are in the right.”

“Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation.”

“Human pride is not worthwhile; there is always something lying in wait to take the wind out of it.”

“Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought.”

Mark Twain quote: “The average man don't like trouble and danger.”

“The average man don't like trouble and danger.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell together, as quickly as possible.”

“Words are only painted fire, a look is the fire itself. She gave that look, and carried it away to the treasury of heaven, where all things that are divine belong.”

Mark Twain book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Source: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

“Man - a figment of God's imagination.”

“The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.”

“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”

Mark Twain book Life on the Mississippi

Source: Life on the Mississippi

“How often we recall with regret that Napoleon once shot at a magazine editor and missed him and killed a publisher. But we remember with charity that his intentions were good.”

“He was sunshine most always-I mean he made it seem like good weather.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“Work like you don't need the money. Dance like no one is watching. And love like you've never been hurt.”

“Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”

“One should never use exclamation points in writing. It is like laughing at your own joke.”

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

Mark Twain's Notebook (1935)

“I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing.”

“I don't want no better book than what your face is.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“It is sound judgment to put on a bold face and play your hand for a hundred times what it is worth; forty-nine times out of fifty nobody dares to call it, and you roll in the chips.”

“I am a great and sublime fool. But then I am God's fool, and all His works must be contemplated with respect.”

“Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

Variant: great people are those who make others feel that they, too, can become great.

“Ah, that shows you the power of music, that magician of magician, who lifts his wand and says his mysterious word and all things real pass away and the phantoms of your mind walk before you clothed in flesh.”

Mark Twain book Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc

Source: Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc

“The trouble with the world is not that people know too little; it's that they know so many things that just aren't so.”

Similar authors

Josh Billings photo

Josh Billings91

American humorist None

Ellen G. White photo

Ellen G. White48

American author and founder/leader of the Seventh-Day Adven… None

Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo

Fyodor Dostoyevsky155

Russian author None

Jules Renard photo

Jules Renard1

French author (1864-1910) None

Friedrich Engels photo

Friedrich Engels87

German social scientist, author, political theorist, and ph… None