Before we read the best Mark Twain Quotes, let’s also know a bit more about who he was:
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known most commonly by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was lauded as one of the greatest humorists. William Faulkner even called him “the father of American literature”
Born:30 November 1835
Died:21 April 1910
Inspirational Mark Twain Quotes
“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 secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” – Mark Twain
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear” – Mark Twain
“To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.” – Mark Twain
“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.” – Mark Twain
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – 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
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” – Mark Twain
“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” – Mark Twain
“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” – Mark Twain
“A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.” – Mark Twain
The lack of money is the root of all evil.” – Mark Twain
“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well”. – Mark Twain
“Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.” – Mark Twain
“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” – Mark Twain
“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.” – Mark Twain
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” – Mark Twain
“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” – Mark Twain
“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.” – Mark Twain
“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” – Mark Twain
Top 100 Meaningful and Funny Mark Twain Quotes on Life, Love, Education, Success and more from his books
1 – “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
2. Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. – Mark Twain
3 – It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive. – Mark Twain
4 – Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. – Mark Twain
5 – Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man’s, I mean. – Mark Twain
6 – She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot. – Mark Twain
7 – The lack of money is the root of all evil. – Mark Twain Quotes on Money
8 – 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
9 – Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever. – Mark Twain
10 – 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
11 – 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
12 – The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – ‘is the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning. – Mark Twain
13 – 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
14 – When people do not respect us we are sharply offended yet in his private heart no man much respects himself. – Mark Twain
15 – A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation. – Mark Twain
16 – When red-haired people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn. – Mark Twain
17 – I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one. – Mark Twain Quotes on Life
18 – The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become. – Mark Twain
19 – All emotion is involuntary when genuine. – Mark Twain
20 – My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water. – Mark Twain
21 – Prosperity is the best protector of principle. – Mark Twain
22 – The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all. – Mark Twain
23 – By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean. – Mark Twain
24 – Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet. – Mark Twain
25 – Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable. – Mark Twain
26 – When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not. – Mark Twain
27 – What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin. – Mark Twain
28 – When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. – Mark Twain
29 – Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul. – Mark Twain
30 – Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written. – Mark Twain
31 – The Christian’s Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes. – Mark Twain Quotes on Religion
32 – 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
33 – Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen. – Mark Twain
34 – Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all. – Mark Twain
35 – The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane. – Mark Twain
36 – I never let schooling interfere with my education. – Mark Twain
37 – Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. – Mark Twain
38 – The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. – Mark Twain
39 – Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish. – Mark Twain
40 – Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain. – Mark Twain
41 – ‘Classic.’ A book which people praise and don’t read. – Mark Twain Quotes on Books
42 – If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later. – Mark Twain
43 – No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon. – Mark Twain
44 – Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied. – Mark Twain
45 – There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one – keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy. – Mark Twain
46 – Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. – Mark Twain Quotes on Courage and Fear
47 – Words are only painted fire; a look is fire itself. – Mark Twain
48 – Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. – Mark Twain
49 – 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
50 – Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. – Mark Twain
51 – The secret of getting ahead is getting started. – Mark Twain
52 – 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
53 – Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please. – Mark Twain
54 – 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
55 – Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. – Mark Twain
56 – Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. – Mark Twain
57 – Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress, but I repeat myself. – Mark Twain
58 – Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today. – Mark Twain
59 – 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
60 – If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything. – Mark Twain
61 – Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. – Mark Twain
62 – 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 Quotes On Anger
63 – When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old. – Mark Twain
64 – Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. – Mark Twain
65 – Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow. – Mark Twain
66 – All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure. – Mark Twain
67 – We have the best government that money can buy. – Mark Twain Quotes on Government
68 – The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this. – Mark Twain
69 – The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up. – Mark Twain
70 – When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain. – Mark Twain
Mark Twain Quotes On Love
71 – The human race has a one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. – Mark Twain
72 – Climate is what we expect, the weather is what we get. – Mark Twain
73 – Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about. – Mark Twain
74 – A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read. – Mark Twain
75 – Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. – Mark Twain Quotes On Reading
76 – A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. – Mark Twain
77 – Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident. – Mark Twain
78 – If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way. – Mark Twain
79 – The educated Southerner has no use for an ‘r’, except at the beginning of a word. – Mark Twain
80 – A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds. – Mark Twain
81 – The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives. – Mark Twain
82 – Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackle as if she laid an asteroid. – Funny Mark Twain Quotes
83 – The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven. – Mark Twain
84 – Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so. – Mark Twain
85 – A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar. – Mark Twain
86 – Everything has its limit – iron ore cannot be educated into gold. – Mark Twain
87 – The trouble ain’t that there are too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right. – Mark Twain
88 – Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often. – Mark Twain
89 – Buy land, they’re not making it anymore. – Mark Twain
90 – 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
91 – Let us endeavor so to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. – Mark Twain
92 – It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions. – Funny Mark Twain Quotes on Man
93 – Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it. – Mark Twain
94 – Thunder is good, thunder is impressive, but it is lightning that does the work. – Mark Twain
95 – My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. – Mark Twain
96 – I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough. – Mark Twain
97 – Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing. – Mark Twain Quotes on Hummer
98 – Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it. – Mark Twain
99 – Optimist: daydreamer more elegantly spelled. – Mark Twain
100 – Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen. – Mark Twain
