Mark Twain Quotes

920 Sourced Quotes

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.

Mark Twain
Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Mark Twain
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Mark Twain
If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.

Mark Twain
There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.

Mark Twain
I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.

Mark Twain
The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up.

Mark Twain
"Sir Thomas, arrest this—No, hold!" His face lighted, and he confronted the ragged candidate with this question—
"Where lieth the Great Seal? Answer me this truly, and the riddle is unriddled; for only he that was Prince of Wales can so answer! On so trivial a thing hang a throne and a dynasty!"

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
Before taking final leave of me, my instructor inquired concerning my physical strength, and I was able to inform him that I hadn't any.

Mark Twain
Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world — and never will.

Mark Twain
I am persuaded that in Russia, Austria, and Germany nine-tenths of the hostility to the Jew comes from the average Christian's inability to compete successfully with the average Jew in business—in either straight business or the questionable sort.

Mark Twain
It is a pity we can't escape from life when we are young.

Mark Twain
The slowness of one section of the world about adopting the valuable ideas of another section of it is a curious thing and unaccountable.

Mark Twain
No California gentleman or lady ever abuses or oppresses a Chinaman, under any circumstances, an explanation that seems to be much needed in the east. Only the scum of the population do it; they and their children. They, and, naturally and consistently, the policemen and politicians, likewise, for these are the dust-licking pimps and slaves of the scum, there as well as elsewhere in America.

Mark Twain
They spell it "Vinci" and pronounce it "Vinchy". Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.

Mark Twain
There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.

Mark Twain
The principle of give and take is the principle of diplomacy - give one and take ten

Mark Twain
Jesus died to save men — a small thing for an immortal to do, & didn't save many, anyway; but if he had been damned for the race that would have been act of a size proper to a god, & would have saved the whole race. However, why should anybody want to save the human race, or damn it either? Does God want its society? Does Satan?

Mark Twain
Apparently one of the most uncertain things in the world is the funeral of a religion.

Mark Twain