Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Mark Twain (American Humorist)

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835–1910) was an American novelist and humorist. He took his nom de plume Mark Twain after the sounding calls of steamboatmen on the Mississippi River, on the banks of which he was brought up. The pseudonym is believed to have been a river navigation phrase meaning “two fathoms deep.”

Born in Florida, Missouri, Twain studied up to fifth grade and quit school when his father died. He supported his family first as a typesetter and later as a riverboat captain until the Civil War broke out in 1861. He then headed west, worked as a miner, and eventually became a journalist.

By 1866, Twain had gained national fame as a humorist and travel writer. He traveled to the Mediterranean and the Holy Land and subsequently published a comic account of his voyages and his American fellow-travelers, The Innocents Abroad (1869.)

Twain is much celebrated for three novels that are often used as academic texts, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876,) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885,) and Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894,) all of which give a vivid evocation of frontier life in the Mississippi valley. Twain’s writings are characterized by his natural wit, social criticism, and a keen understanding of human nature. He toured widely as a renowned public speaker and continued to write until his death of a heart attack.

Twain’s later books, such as The Mysterious Stranger (1916,) are often satirical and cynical, possibly in reaction to the conservative social milieu of his wife. He spent his last years dictating his autobiography—which had been the subject of many of his writing.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Mark Twain

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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

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