Mark Twain Quotes

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. All day long, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, not those of other things, are his history. These are his life, and they are not written. Everyday would make a whole book of 80,000 words -- 365 books a year. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man -- the biography of the man himself cannot be written.
Mark Twain
T[he rules of writing] require that the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it.
Mark Twain
T[he rules of writing] require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.
Mark Twain
Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.
Mark Twain
When I was a boy of fourteen my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.
Mark Twain
When I was younger I could remember anything whether it had happened or not.
Mark Twain
I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so that it will not only interest boys but strongly interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges the audience.
Mark Twain
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles but most of them never happened.
Mark Twain
Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do and play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
Mark Twain
Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.
Mark Twain
In certain trying circumstances urgent circumstances desperate circumstances profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.
Mark Twain
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.
Mark Twain
Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation.
Mark Twain
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stovelid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that is well but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
Mark Twain
I wish to become rich so that I can instruct the people and glorify honest poverty a little like those kind-hearted fat benevolent people do.
Mark Twain
I am opposed to millionaires but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.
Mark Twain
I have too much respect for the truth to drag it out on every trifling occasion.
Mark Twain
If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.
Mark Twain
There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land again after a cheerful careless voyage.
Mark Twain
In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.
Mark Twain
Travel is fatal to prejudice bigotry and narrow-mindedness.
Mark Twain
That kind of so-called housekeeping where they have six Bibles and no cork-screw.
Mark Twain
Adam was the only man who when he said a good thing knew that nobody had said it before him.
Mark Twain
There are several good protections against temptation but the surest is cowardice.
Mark Twain
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
Mark Twain
The pause - that impressive silence that eloquent silence that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words howsoever felicitous could accomplish it.
Mark Twain
Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor both to yourself and to your country let men label you as they may.
Mark Twain
A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
Mark Twain
The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.
Mark Twain
When we remember that we are all mad the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
Mark Twain
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that but the really great make you feel that you too can become great.
Mark Twain
Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
Mark Twain
It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me it's the parts that I do understand.
Mark Twain
Heaven goes by favor if it went by merit you would stay out and your dog would go in.
Mark Twain
Get your facts first and then you can distort 'em as much as you please.
Mark Twain
I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead Spenser is dead so is Milton so is Shakespeare and I'm not feeling so well myself.
Mark Twain
We are chameleons and our partialities and prejudices change places with an easy and blessed facility.
Mark Twain
Deep down in me I knowed it was a lie and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie-I found that out.
Mark Twain
In prayer we call ourselves 'worms of the dust' but it is only on a sort of tacit understanding that the remark shall not be taken at par.
Mark Twain
I can live for two months on a good compliment.
Mark Twain
The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.
Mark Twain
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
Mark Twain
The Creator made Italy with designs by Michelangelo.
Mark Twain
What a good thing Adam had - when he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.
Mark Twain
I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.
Mark Twain
It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
Mark Twain
Make it a point to do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.
Mark Twain
Richard Wagner a musician who wrote music which is better than it sounds.
Mark Twain
It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me it's the parts that I do understand.
Mark Twain
Heaven goes by favor if it went by merit you would stay out and your dog would go in.
Mark Twain
Get your facts first and then you can distort 'em as much as you please.
Mark Twain
I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead Spenser is dead so is Milton so is Shakespeare and I'm not feeling so well myself.
Mark Twain
We are chameleons and our partialities and prejudices change places with an easy and blessed facility.
Mark Twain
Deep down in me I knowed it was a lie and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie-I found that out.
Mark Twain
In certain trying circumstances urgent circumstances desperate circumstances profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.
Mark Twain
In prayer we call ourselves 'worms of the dust' but it is only on a sort of tacit understanding that the remark shall not be taken at par.
Mark Twain
I can live for two months on a good compliment.
Mark Twain
The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.
Mark Twain
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
Mark Twain
The Creator made Italy with designs by Michelangelo.
Mark Twain