Mark Twain quotes
Mark Twain (1835–1910): American author and humorist. The library holds 108 quotes by Mark Twain, drawn from Following the Equator, Pudd’nhead Wilson, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar and other works. The 60 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
Often about: humour, faith, death, nature, time, change
The best-known Mark Twain quotes
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Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar, in Pudd’nhead Wilson -
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar, in Pudd’nhead Wilson -
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.
Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, in Following the Equator -
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.
Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar, in Pudd’nhead Wilson -
There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one! keep from telling their happinesses to the unhappy.
Following the Equator -
It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.
Following the Equator -
He had had much experience of physicians, and said “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.”
Following the Equator -
Even popularity can be overdone. In Rome, along at first, you are full of regrets that Michelangelo died; but by and by you only regret that you didn’t see him do it.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
The man with a new idea is a Crank until the idea succeeds.
Following the Equator -
Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.
Following the Equator -
Let us be grateful to Adam our benefactor. He cut us out of the “blessing of idleness,” and won for us the “curse of labor.”
Following the Equator -
There is no such thing as “the Queen’s English.” The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares!
Following the Equator -
October 12, the Discovery. It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
The English are mentioned in the Bible: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Following the Equator -
Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Following the Equator -
Remark of Dr. Baldwin’s, concerning upstarts: We don’t care to eat toadstools that think they are truffles.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
Make it a point to do something every day that you don’t want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.
Following the Equator -
He was as shy as a newspaper is when referring to its own merits.
Following the Equator -
When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.
Following the Equator -
In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards.
Following the Equator -
October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
The Autocrat of Russia possesses more power than any other man in the earth; but he cannot stop a sneeze.
Following the Equator -
Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwep is pronounced Jackson.
Following the Equator -
None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try.
Following the Equator -
The spirit of wrath—not the words—is the sin; and the spirit of wrath is cursing. We begin to swear before we can talk.
Following the Equator -
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
Following the Equator -
Truth is stranger than fiction—to some people, but I am measurably familiar with it.
Following the Equator -
Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs a step at a time.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
The old saw says, “Let a sleeping dog lie.” Right… Still, when there is much at stake it is better to get a newspaper to do it.
Following the Equator -
Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.
Following the Equator -
Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
Following the Equator -
There isn’t a Parallel of Latitude but thinks it would have been the Equator if it had had its rights.
Following the Equator -
Thanksgiving Day. Let all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks, now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.
Following the Equator -
The man who is ostentatious of his modesty is twin to the statue that wears a fig-leaf.
Following the Equator -
Nature makes the locust with an appetite for crops; man would have made him with an appetite for sand.
Following the Equator -
Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple’s sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
It is often the case that the man who can’t tell a lie thinks he is the best judge of one.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be a young June-bug than an old bird of paradise.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
Following the Equator -
It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse-races.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
Simple rules for saving money: To save half, when you are fired by an eager impulse to contribute to a charity, wait, and count forty. To save three-quarters, count sixty. To save it all, count sixty-five.
Following the Equator -
Gratitude and treachery are merely the two extremities of the same procession. You have seen all of it that is worth staying for when the band and the gaudy officials have gone by.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes its laws or its songs either.
Following the Equator -
It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
There are no people who are quite so vulgar as the over-refined ones.
Following the Equator -
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.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
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.
Following the Equator -
April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.
Pudd’nhead Wilson -
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.
Following the Equator -
There is an old-time toast which is golden for its beauty. “When you ascend the hill of prosperity may you not meet a friend.”
Following the Equator -
By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.
Following the Equator -
Let us not be too particular. It is better to have old second-hand diamonds than none at all.
Following the Equator -
SATAN (impatiently) to NEW-COMER. The trouble with you Chicago people is, that you think you are the best people down here; whereas you are merely the most numerous.
Following the Equator -
To succeed in the other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do.
Following the Equator -
The principal difference between a cat and a lie is that the cat has only nine lives.
Following the Equator
Where these quotes come from
- Following the Equator (70 quotes)
- Pudd’nhead Wilson (34 quotes)
- Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar (3 quotes)
- Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar (1 quote)
Every quote comes from a public-domain edition. How the library was made .