Mark Twain Quotes (1103 Quotes)

There is nothing more frustrating than a good example.

Never refuse to do a kindness unless the act would work great injury to yourself, and never refuse to take a drink- under any circumstances

An inglorious peace is better than a dishonorable war

I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places.

India has 2,000,000 gods, and worships them all. In religion other countries are paupers India is the only millionaire.

If it is a Miracle, any sort of evidence will answer, but if it is a Fact, proof is necessary.

Eternal rest sounds comforting in the pulpit well, you try it once, and see how heavy time will hang on your hands.

An occultation of Venus is not half so difficult as an eclipse of the Sun, but because it comes seldom the world thinks it's a grand thing

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one - keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.

There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.

Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.

The educated Southerner has no use for an 'R', except at the beginning of a word.

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.

My parents were neither very poor nor conspicuously honest.

A monarch, when good, is entitled to the consideration which we accord to a pirate who keeps Sunday School between crimes when bad, he is entitled to none at all.

Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.

Man is the master of the unspoken word, which spoken, is master of him.

We have nine children now half boys and half girls.

Next to possessing genius one's self is the power of appreciating it in others.

When one has tasted it he knows what the angels eat.

The perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy is to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our capacities, we will then be a happy and a virtuous people.

Temperate temperance is best intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance.

To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.

Its not true that men forget theyre married when they see a pretty woman. Just the opposite, thats when theyre most painfully reminded of it.

We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Adam, the first great benefactor of the human race he brought death into the world.

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, Brave, Hated, and Scorned. When his cause succeeds however,the timid join him, For then it costs nothing to be a Patriot.

Men think they think upon the great political questions, and they do but they think with their party, not independently they read its literature, but not that of the other side

If I cannot smoke cigars in Heaven, I shall not go

Shut the door not that it lets in the cold but that it lets out the coziness.

There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus.

If I cannot swear in heaven I shall not stay there.

Never waste a lie you never know when you may need it.

Children have but little charity for one another's defects

Old habits can't be thrown out the upstairs window. They have to be coaxeddown the stairs one step at a time.

The highest pleasure to be got out of freedom, and having nothing to do, is labor

It is no use to keep private information which you can't show off

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.

If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.

Never do wrong when people are looking.

There it is it doesn't make any difference who we are or what we are, there's always somebody to look down on somebody to hold in light esteem, somebody to be indifferent about.

Wit and Humor -- if any difference, it is in duration -- lightning and electric light. Same material, apparently but one is vivid, and can do damage -- the other fools along and enjoys elaboration.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

The law of God, as quite plainly expressed in woman's construction, is this There shall be no limit put upon your intercourse with the other sex sexually, at any time of life. During twenty-three days in every month (in the absence of pregnancy) from the time a woman is seven years old till she dies of old age, she is ready for action, and competent. As competent as the candlestick is to receive the candle. Competent every day, competent every night. Also, she wants that candle -- yearns for it, longs for it, hankers after it, as commanded by the law of God in her heart.

In the real world, nothing happens at the right place at the right time. It is the job of journalists and historians to correct that.

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

Ignorance, intolerance, egotism, self-assertion, opaque perception, dense and pitiful chuckle headedness - and an almost pathetic unconsciousness of it all, that is what I was at nineteen and twenty

In all the ages, three-fourths of the support of the great charities has been conscience money

I don't give a damn for a man who can spell a word only one way.

People are much more willing to lend you books than bookcases.