Recommended Reading
- ‘Mark Twain: A Life‘ by Ron Powers
- ‘Mark Twain: The Complete Novels‘ by Mark Twain
- ‘On the Decay of the Art of Lying‘ by Mark Twain
- ‘The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain: A Book of Quotations‘ by Mark Twain
- ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn‘ by Mark Twain
Inspirational Quotes by Mark Twain (American Humorist)
Be good and you will be lonely.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Loneliness
Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It’s like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won’t fatten the dog.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Prison
Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Determination
Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Dress, Fashion
There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Children
Public opinion is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it is the voice of God.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Opinions, Opinion, Public opinion
How little a thing can make us happy when we fell that we have earned it.
—Mark Twain
I like to instruct people. It is noble to teach oneself. It is still nobler to teach others, and less trouble.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Education
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Being True to Yourself
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Knowledge, Experience
The principle of give and take is the principle of diplomacy – give one and take ten
—Mark Twain
Topics: Principles, Diplomacy
Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Money, Success, Concentration, Wealth, Caution, Secrets of Success
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.
—Mark Twain
To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Diet, Weight, Promises
Yes, Agassiz does recommend authors to eat fish, because the phosphorus in it makes brain. So far you are correct. But I cannot help you to a decision about the amount you need to eat – at least, not with certainty. If the specimen composition you send is about your fair usual average, I should judge that a couple of whales would be all you would want for the present. Not the largest kind, but simply good middling-sized whales.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Insults
Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
—Mark Twain
Topics: The Body, Work, Philosophy, Enjoyment, Philosophers
We do not deal much in facts when we are contemplating ourselves.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Self-Discovery, Self-Esteem, Self Respect
A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Habit, Habits
There was never a century nor a country that was short of experts who knew the Deity’s mind and were willing to reveal it.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Religion
To be satisfied with what one has; that is wealth. As long as one sorely needs a certain additional amount, that man isn’t rich.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Blessings, Appreciation, Gratitude
We can secure other people’s approval if we do right and try hard; but our own is worth a hundred of it, and no way has been found out of securing that.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Self-Discovery
There isn’t a single human characteristic that can be safely labeled as “American.”
—Mark Twain
Topics: America
Temper is what gets most of us into trouble. Pride is what keeps us there.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Trouble
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
Topics: Writing
I said there was but one solitary thing about the past worth remembering and that was the fact that it is past-can’t be restored.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Past
I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can’t find anybody who can tell me what they want.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Self-Discovery, Desire, Vision, Desires, Life
I would rather have my ignorance than another man’s knowledge, because I have so much of it.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Ignorance
Get your facts first, and then you can distort ’em as you please.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Journalism, Facts
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
Topics: Birds
New Year’s Day: now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual . . . New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions.
—Mark Twain
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) American Humorist
- Bill Bryson American Humorist
- Garrison Keillor American Broadcaster, Writer
- Leo Rosten American Humorist
- Andy Rooney American Writer
- Thomas Masson American Journalist
- S. J. Perelman American Humorist
- Robert Quillen American Journalist
- Sam Levenson American Humorist
- Charles Farrar Browne (Artemus Ward) American Humorist
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