Words matter. These are the best Mark Twain Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Let us endeavor so to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.
Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.
When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
There is no distinctly American criminal class – except Congress.
Laws control the lesser man… Right conduct controls the greater one.
There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.
Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.
It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.
The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man’s, I mean.
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.
India has 2,000,000 gods and worships them all. In religion, all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire.
When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.
We Americans… bear the ark of liberties of the world.
Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.
Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.
There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.
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.
It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one – keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.
I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.
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.
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
The Christian’s Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.
It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.
Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.
Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
Prosperity is the best protector of principle.
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.
Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.
Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.
Everything has its limit – iron ore cannot be educated into gold.
Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.
The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives.
When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.
I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.
Optimist: day dreamer more elegantly spelled.
When in doubt tell the truth.
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.
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.
A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.
I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
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.
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but deteriorate the cat.
Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.
How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing, nobody had said it before.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
I never let schooling interfere with my education.
Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.
Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.
When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.
The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.
Better a broken promise than none at all.
The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.
Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.
The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
We are all alike, on the inside.
Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.
It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.
To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
‘Classic.’ A book which people praise and don’t read.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.
But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
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.
A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.
Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.
He is now rising from affluence to poverty.
No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.
When red-haired people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.
It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.
Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.
