Mark Twain

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
Mark Twain

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.
Mark Twain

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain

A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
Mark Twain

A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.
Mark Twain

A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
Mark Twain

A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.
Mark Twain

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.
Mark Twain

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
Mark Twain

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
Mark Twain

All generalizations are false, including this one.
Mark Twain

All right, then, I'll go to hell.
Mark Twain

All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.
Mark Twain

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
Mark Twain

Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.
Mark Twain

Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.
Mark Twain

As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake.
Mark Twain

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
Mark Twain

Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul.
Mark Twain

Better a broken promise than none at all.
Mark Twain

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Mark Twain

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.
Mark Twain

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
Mark Twain

Buy land, they're not making it anymore.
Mark Twain

By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.
Mark Twain

Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
Mark Twain

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.
Mark Twain

'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read.
Mark Twain

Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.
Mark Twain

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Mark Twain

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
Mark Twain

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
Mark Twain

Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain

Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
Mark Twain

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
Mark Twain

Don't let schooling interfere with your education.
Mark Twain

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
Mark Twain

Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.
Mark Twain

Don't tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish.
Mark Twain

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.
Mark Twain

Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
Mark Twain

Everything has its limit - iron ore cannot be educated into gold.
Mark Twain

Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.
Mark Twain

Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
Mark Twain

Familiarity breeds contempt - and children.
Mark Twain

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
Mark Twain

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
Mark Twain

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Mark Twain

George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.
Mark Twain

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
Mark Twain

Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times.
Mark Twain

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
Mark Twain

God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
Mark Twain

Golf is a good walk spoiled.
Mark Twain

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
Mark Twain

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
Mark Twain

Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
Mark Twain

He is now rising from affluence to poverty.
Mark Twain

Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.
Mark Twain

Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.
Mark Twain

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.
Mark Twain

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
Mark Twain

I can live for two months on a good compliment.
Mark Twain

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
Mark Twain

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

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

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

I have made it a rule never to smoke more that one cigar at a time.
Mark Twain

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
Mark Twain

I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.
Mark Twain

I make it a rule never to smoke while I'm sleeping.
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

I never let schooling interfere with my education.
Mark Twain

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.
Mark Twain

I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.
Mark Twain

I've never let my school interfere with my education.
Mark Twain

Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.
Mark Twain

If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.
Mark Twain

If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.
Mark Twain

If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.
Mark Twain

If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.
Mark Twain

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

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
Mark Twain

In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.
Mark Twain

It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.
Mark Twain

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.
Mark Twain

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress.
Mark Twain

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
Mark Twain

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
Mark Twain

It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.
Mark Twain

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
Mark Twain

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
Mark Twain

It is easier to stay out than get out.
Mark Twain

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

It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.
Mark Twain

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
Mark Twain

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.
Mark Twain

It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
Mark Twain

It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
Mark Twain

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
Mark Twain

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Mark Twain

Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.
Mark Twain

Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Mark Twain

Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.
Mark Twain

Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.
Mark Twain

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
Mark Twain

Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
Mark Twain

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
Mark Twain

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
Mark Twain

Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
Mark Twain

Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to.
Mark Twain

Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
Mark Twain

Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.
Mark Twain

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
Mark Twain

Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.
Mark Twain

My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.
Mark Twain

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.
Mark Twain

Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
Mark Twain

Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
Mark Twain

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
Mark Twain

No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.
Mark Twain

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.
Mark Twain

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
Mark Twain

Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
Mark Twain

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

Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial "we."
Mark Twain

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

Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
Mark Twain

Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
Mark Twain

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
Mark Twain

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
Mark Twain

Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.
Mark Twain

Prosperity is the best protector of principle.
Mark Twain

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
Mark Twain

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

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
Mark Twain

Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
Mark Twain

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
Mark Twain

Such is the human race, often it seems a pity that Noah... didn't miss the boat.
Mark Twain

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
Mark Twain

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

The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.
Mark Twain

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
Mark Twain

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

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
Mark Twain

The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.
Mark Twain

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
Mark Twain

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.
Mark Twain

The lack of money is the root of all evil.
Mark Twain

The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives.
Mark Twain

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
Mark Twain

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

The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.
Mark Twain

The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it.
Mark Twain

The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.
Mark Twain

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.
Mark Twain

The Public is merely a multiplied "me."
Mark Twain

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.
Mark Twain

The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
Mark Twain

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
Mark Twain

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
Mark Twain

The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.
Mark Twain

The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.
Mark Twain

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
Mark Twain

The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.
Mark Twain

There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.
Mark Twain

There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
Mark Twain

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

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

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.
Mark Twain

There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.
Mark Twain

There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress.
Mark Twain

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.
Mark Twain

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.
Mark Twain

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.
Mark Twain

To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
Mark Twain

To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.
Mark Twain

To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.
Mark Twain

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so.
Mark Twain

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

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
Mark Twain

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
Mark Twain

Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.
Mark Twain

We Americans... bear the ark of liberties of the world.
Mark Twain

We are all alike, on the inside.
Mark Twain

We have the best government that money can buy.
Mark Twain

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.
Mark Twain

What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.
Mark Twain

What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.
Mark Twain

What would men be without women? Scarce, sir, mighty scarce.
Mark Twain

What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.
Mark Twain

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.
Mark Twain

When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.
Mark Twain

When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.
Mark Twain

When in doubt tell the truth.
Mark Twain

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.
Mark Twain

When red-haired people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.
Mark Twain

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
Mark Twain

When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.
Mark Twain

When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old.
Mark Twain

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

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
Mark Twain

Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
Mark Twain

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

Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
Mark Twain

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
Mark Twain

Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
Mark Twain

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
Mark Twain

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
Mark Twain