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Inspirational Quotations

by RightAttitudes.com

Inspirational Quotes by Mark Twain (American Humorist)

Inspirational Quotations 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)

Often the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Honesty, Truth

There is this trouble about special providences—namely, there is so often a doubt as to which party was intended to be the beneficiary. In the case of the children, the bears, and the prophet, the bears got more real satisfaction out of the episode than the prophet did, because they got the children.
—Mark Twain

Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Money, Wealth, Success, Caution

A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be lead by the nose.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Wisdom

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

By his father he is English, by his mother he is Americanto my mind the blend which makes the perfect man.
—Mark Twain

When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.
—Mark Twain

On with the dance, let joy be unconfined is my motto, whether there’s a dance to dance or any joy to unconfine.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Dance

When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
—Mark Twain

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Experience, Knowledge

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain’t so.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Honesty

Lord save us all from… a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Aspirations, Hope

History does not repeat itself but it does rhyme.
—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 inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Self-reliance, Decisions, Integrity, Confidence

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Honesty

The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They looked curiously at the costumes we had brought from the wilds of America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes. They noticed that we looked out for expenses and got what we conveniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in the mischief we came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.
—Mark Twain

Say the report is exaggerated.
—Mark Twain

We are always too busy for our children; we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them; but the most precious gift, our personal association, which means so much to them, we give grudgingly.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Family

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 druther not.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Attitude, Health, Thinking, Good, Perception, Perspective

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
—Mark Twain

The teacher reminded us that Romes liberties were not auctioned off in a day, but were bought slowly, gradually, furtively, little by little; first with a little corn and oil for the exceedingly poor and wretched, later with corn and oil for voters who were not quite so poor, later still with corn and oil for pretty much every man that had a vote to sellexactly our own history over again.
—Mark Twain

Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Happiness, Friendship

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Forgiveness, Government

Worrying about something is like paying interest on a debt you don’t even know if you owe.
—Mark Twain

Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Habit, Correction, Reform, Hypocrisy

Praise is well, compliment is well, but affection-that is the last and most precious reward that any man can win, whether by character or achievement.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Love

Go to bed early, get up early—this is wise.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Sleep, Relaxation

Tell the truth or trump — but get the trick.
—Mark Twain

There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and the three form a rising scale of compliment: 1 — to tell him you have read one of his books; 2 — to tell him you have read all of his books; 3 — to ask him to let you read the manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you to his respect; No. 2 admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries you clear into his heart.
—Mark Twain

How little a thing can make us happy when we fell that we have earned it.
—Mark Twain

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Laughter

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 stove-lid. 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

The cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will not sit upon a hot stove lid again. But he won’t sit upon a cold stove lid, either.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Experience

Always do right. It will please some people and astonish the rest.
—Mark Twain

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Eating, Education

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Carpe-diem, Death

We all know about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of the bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster. It seems almost certain that we have been choosing the wrong time for studying the oyster.
—Mark Twain

Each person is born to one possession which outvalues all his others — his last breath.
—Mark Twain
Topics: Life, Death

In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.
—Mark Twain

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.
—Mark Twain

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