Mark Twain Quotes

1,400 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
It seems to me that in the matter of intellect the ant must be a strangely overrated bird. During the many summers, now, I have watched him, when I ought to have been in better business, and I have not yet come across a living ant that seemed to have any more sense than a dead one.

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
If you send a damned fool to St. Louis, and you don't tell them he's a damned fool, they'll never find out.

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
There's a good spot tucked away somewhere in everybody. You'll be a long time finding it, sometimes.

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
All the territorial possessions of all the political establishments in the earth--including America, of course-- consist of pilferings from other people's wash. No tribe, howsoever insignificant, and no nation, howsoever mighty occupies a foot of land that was not stolen.

Mark Twain
Wisdom teaches us that none but birds should go out early, and that not even birds should do it unless they are out of worms.

Mark Twain
When whole races and peoples conspire to propagate gigantic mute lies in the interest of tyrannies and shams, why should we care anything about the trifling lies told by individuals?

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

Mark Twain
By common consent of all the nations and all the ages the most valuable thing in this world is the homage of men, whether deserved or undeserved.

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