Mark Twain Quotes

1,400 Sourced Quotes

We chase phantoms half the days of our lives. It is well if we learn wisdom even then, and save the other half.

Mark Twain
The human race consists of the damned and the ought-to-be damned.

Mark Twain
You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is.

Mark Twain
Can it be possible that the painters make John the Baptist a Spaniard in Madrid and an Irishman in Dublin?

Mark Twain
Somehow, every time the magic of fol-de-rol tried conclusions with the magic of science, the magic of fol-de-rol got left.

Mark Twain
Somebody has said, Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.

Mark Twain
What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand still a year. It grows—it must grow; nothing can prevent it.

Mark Twain
The old man laughed loud and joyously, shook up the details of his anatomy from head to foot, and ended by saying that such a laugh was money in a man's pocket, because it cut down the doctor's bills like everything.

Mark Twain
It is curious and interesting to notice what an attraction a fussy, mincing, nickel-plated word has for you.

Mark Twain
Yes, even I am dishonest. Not in many ways, but in some. Forty-one, I think it is.

Mark Twain
Women cannot receive even the most palpably judicious suggestion without arguing it; that is, married women.

Mark Twain
I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo — that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture — great in every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast — for luncheon — for dinner — for tea — for supper — for between meals. I like a change, occasionally.

Mark Twain
When in doubt, tell the truth. That maxim I did invent, but never expected it to be applied to me. I did say, "When you are in doubt," but when I am in doubt myself I use more sagacity.

Mark Twain
Each man is afraid of his neighbor's disapproval - a thing which, to the general run of the human race, is more dreaded than wolves and death.

Mark Twain
If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill always came together, who would escape hanging? Framed in a more positive light, this tells us also that if we wish to accomplish a particular thing then we need to increase our level of desire for that thing and to create or seek out the opportunities and right environment for it to happen without fail.

Mark Twain
No, I have no desire for riches. Honest poverty and a conscience, torpid through virtuous inaction, are more to me than corner lots and praise.

Mark Twain
If a spectacle is going to be particularly imposing I prefer to see it through somebody else's eyes, because that man will always exaggerate. Then I can exaggerate his exaggeration, and my account of the thing will be the most impressive.

Mark Twain
Don't you know that the very thing a man dreads is the thing that always happens?

Mark Twain
I went to the circus, and loafed around the back side till the watchman went by, and then dived in under the tent. I had my twenty-dollar gold piece and some other money, but I reckoned I better save it.... I ain't opposed to spending money on circuses, when there ain't no other way, but there ain't no use in wasting it on them.

Mark Twain
The law of work does seem utterly unfair-but there it is, and nothing can change it: the higher the pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it, the higher shall be his pay in cash, too.

Mark Twain
There's some human instinct which makes a man treasure what he is not to make any use of, because everybody does not possess it.

Mark Twain
Nothing is so ignorant as a man's left hand, except a lady's watch.

Mark Twain
Surely the test of a novel's characters is that you feel a strong interest in them and their affairs—the good to be successful, the bad to suffer failure. Well, in John Ward, you feel no divided interest, no discriminating interest—you want them all to land in hell together, and right away.

Mark Twain
His grammar is foolishly correct, offensively precise. It flaunts itself in the reader's face all along, and struts and smirks and shows off, and is in a dozen ways irritating and disagreeable. To be serious, I write good grammar myself, but not in that spirit, I am thankful to say. That is to say, my grammar is of a high order, though not at the top. Nobody's is. Perfect grammar—persistent, continuous, sustained—is the fourth dimension, so to speak: many have sought it, but none has found it.

Mark Twain
What chance has the ignorant, uncultivated liar against the educated expert? What chance have I…against a lawyer?

Mark Twain