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Mark Twain Quotes
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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
Mark Twain: 637 quotes808 likes

Mark Twain Quotes

“It is higher and nobler to be kind.”

Mark Twain

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

Mark Twain

“Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things can not be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

Mark Twain book The Innocents Abroad

Vol. II, Conclusion http://books.google.com/books?id=f4EwNleAjJAC&amp;q=%22Travel+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&#x27;s+lifetime%22&amp;pg=PA333#v=onepage <br class="br">Source: The Innocents Abroad (1869) <br class="br">Context: 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&#x27;s lifetime.

“If you must be indiscrete, be discrete in your indiscretion.”

Mark Twain

“Well, everybody does it that way, Huck."
"Tom, I am not everybody.”

Mark Twain book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Source: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments flit away and a sunny spirit takes their place.”

Mark Twain

"What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us?" (1897)

“When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them--then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are far apart.”

Mark Twain

“Necessity is the mother of taking chances.”

Mark Twain

“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

“Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.”

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

Source: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889), Ch. 22

“By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.”

Mark Twain book Following the Equator

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

“Choosing not to read is like closing an open door to paradise”

Mark Twain

“…I was born lazy. I am no lazier now than I was forty years ago, but that is because I reached the limit forty years ago. You can't go beyond possibility.”

Mark Twain

Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 2 (2013), p. 115

“October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.”

Mark Twain book Pudd'nhead Wilson

Variant: December is the toughest month of the year. Others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, October, August, and February.
Source: Pudd'nhead Wilson

“If you want me to give you a two-hour presentation, I am ready today. If you want only a five-minute speech, it will take me two weeks to prepare.”

Mark Twain

“Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.”

Mark Twain

p. 114 http://books.google.com/books?id=qCDpAAAAIAAJ&amp;q=%22Fame+is+a+vapor+popularity+an+accident+the+only+earthly+certainty+is+oblivion%22&amp;pg=PA114#v=onepage <br class="br">Mark Twain&#x27;s Notebook (1935)

“He says every man is a moon and has a side which he turns toward nobody: you have to slip around behind if you want to see it.”

Mark Twain

The Refuge of the Derelicts (unpublished manuscript written 1905–1906) <br class="br">Source: Google Books link https://books.google.com/books?id=uLfR7-ETm0MC&amp;pg=PA326&amp;dq=%22every+man+is+a+moon%22&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIn_iGm83gyAIVTedjCh0LwAap#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false

“I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the things which were sacred to other people.”

Mark Twain

“It’s not the good that die young, it’s the lucky.”

Mark Twain

“He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.”

Mark Twain book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Source: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Ch. 2

“A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”

Mark Twain

“Huck was always willing to take a hand in any enterprise that offered entertainment and required no capital, for he had a troublesome super-abundance of that sort of time which ismoney.”

Mark Twain book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Source: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.”

Mark Twain

Speech (23 September 1907)

“To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), Ch. 21
Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“Don't go around thinking the world owes you a living. It was here first.”

Mark Twain

Misattributed <br class="br">Variant: Don’t believe the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. <br class="br">Source: Often attributed to Twain, but sourced to Robert J. Burdette, Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/06/06/world-owes/

“Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.”

Mark Twain

Source: Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings
Source: Mark Twain's Notebook (1935), p. 381

“One must travel, to learn. Every day, now, old Scriptural phrases that never possessed any significance for me before, take to themselves a meaning.”

Mark Twain book The Innocents Abroad

Source: The Innocents Abroad

“What's your name?"
"Becky Thatcher. What's yours? Oh, I know. It's Thomas Sawyer."
"That's the name they lick me by. I'm Tom when I'm good. You call me Tom, will you?"
"Yes”

Mark Twain book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Source: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me.”

Mark Twain

Source: Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings

“Now he found out a new thing--namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.”

Mark Twain book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Variant: To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.
Source: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Ch. 22.

“We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world and it's efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“New Year’s Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”

Mark Twain

“It's not as bad as it sounds.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.”

Mark Twain book What Is Man?

Source: What Is Man? (1906), Ch. 6

“If a person offends you, and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures; simply watch your chance, and hit him with a brick.”

Mark Twain