Famous Quotes By Mark Twain

Famous Quotes By Mark Twain

1. A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
2. A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
3. A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
4. A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.
5. Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
6. All generalizations are false, including this one.
7. All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.
8. Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
9. Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
10. By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.
11. Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
12. Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
13. Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
14. Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
15. Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
16. Don't let schooling interfere with your education.
17. Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
18. Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.
19. Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
20. Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
21. Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
22. Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
23. Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
24. God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
25. Golf is a good walk spoiled.
26. Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
27. Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
28. Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.
29. Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.
30. Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.
31. I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
32. I can live for two months on a good compliment.
33. I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
34. I have made it a rule never to smoke more that one cigar at a time.
35. I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
36. I must have a prodigious quantity of mind it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.
37. I never let schooling interfere with my education.
38. If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.
39. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
40. In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
41. 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.
42. It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
43. It is not best that we should all think alike it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.
44. It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
45. It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
46. It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
47. I've never let my school interfere with my education.
48. Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.
49. Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
50. Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
51. Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
52. Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
53. Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
54. My books are like water those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.
55. My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.
56. Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.
57. Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
58. Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
59. Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
60. Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
61. Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.
62. Prosperity is the best protector of principle.
63. Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
64. Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
65. 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.
66. Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress but I repeat myself.
67. The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
68. The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.
69. The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
70. The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.
71. The lack of money is the root of all evil.
72. The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
73. 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 rather not.
74. The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
75. The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
76. The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow there is no humor in Heaven.
77. The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
78. There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one - keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.
79. There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
80. Thunder is good, thunder is impressive but it is lightning that does the work.
81. To be good is noble but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
82. To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.
83. Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so.
84. Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities Truth isn't.
85. Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
86. We have the best government that money can buy.
87. What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.
88. What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.
89. When angry, count to four when very angry, swear.
90. When in doubt tell the truth.
91. When people do not respect us we are sharply offended yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.
92. When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
93. When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.
94. Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
95. Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
96. Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation.
97. Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
98. Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
99. Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
100. You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.