Quotes by Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Mark Twain

American writer (ps. of Samuel Langhorne Clemens)

Lived from: 1835 - 1910

Category: Writers (Contemporary) Country: FlagUnited States

Born: 30 november 1835 Died: 21 april 1910

  • A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots.
  • 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.
  • Duties are not performed for duty's sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty -the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself.
  • Patriot : the person who can shout the loudest without knowing where he is crying about .
  • To do something, say something, see something, before anybody else - these are things that confer a pleasure compared with which other pleasures are tame and commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial.
  • A banker is a fellow who lends his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
  • Get your facts first and then you can distort them as much as you wish.
  • Quitting smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times.
  • By common consent of all the nations and all the ages the most valuable thing in this world is the homage of men, whether deserved or undeserved.
  • The cross of the Legion of Honor has been conferred on me. However, few escape that distinction.
  • The Bible has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.
  • History is strewn thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill, but a lie, well told, is immortal.
  • To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler and less trouble.
  • The man who is ostentatious of his modesty is twin to the statue that wears a fig-leaf.
  • If He Tom Sawyer had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do and Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
  • The Pause; that impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words, however so felicitous, could accomplish it.
  • Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: The one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it.
  • We never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead - and not then until we have been dead years and years. People ought to start dead and then they would be honest so much earlier.
  • There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it, and when he can.
  • It is a time when one's spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death.
+17

Search within the quotes from Mark Twain for these words:

Quotes 1 till 20 of 384.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next 
  • Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +21
  • Everything you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +5
  • A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +3
  • Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +3
  • 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
    - +
    +3
  • A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +2
  • A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +2
  • A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be lead by the nose.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +2
  • Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +2
  • Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +2
  • Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +2
  • It is a good idea to obey all the rules when you're young just so you'll have the strength to break them when you're old.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +2
  • Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerve give to wisdom.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +2
  • Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +2
  • refused to attend his funeral. But I wrote a very nice letter explaining that I approved of it.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +1
  • A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +1
  • A good memory and a tongue tied in the middle is a combination which gives immortality to conversation.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +1
  • A man cannot be made comfortable without his own approval.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +1
  • A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +1
  • A monarch, when good, is entitled to the consideration which we accord to a pirate who keeps Sunday School between crimes; when bad, he is entitled to none at all.
    ― Mark Twain
    - +
    +1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next 
All Mark Twain famous quotes and sayings you will always find on greatest-quotations.com

Popular subjects

Popular authors

Questions and Answers

What are the most famous quotes from Mark Twain?

The two most famous quotes from Mark Twain are:

  • "Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it."
  • "Everything you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure."

When did Mark Twain live?

Mark Twain was born in 1835 and died in the year 1910.