Mark Twain

Often the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.

— Mark Twain

Truth is neither alive nor dead; it just aggravates itself all the time.

— Mark Twain

No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the presence of ladies.

— Mark Twain

There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it.

— Mark Twain

I have not a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming vices.

— Mark Twain

Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.

— Mark Twain

Virtue has never been as respectable as money.

— Mark Twain

There are no people who are quite so vulgar as the over-refined.

— Mark Twain

The true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking, or in the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to time the movement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred up and active; the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear in upon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm and solace to eye and soul and sense; but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk.

— Mark Twain

O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief... for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

— Mark Twain

If you don't like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes.

— Mark Twain

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

— Mark Twain

A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be lead by the nose.

— Mark Twain

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.

— Mark Twain

Wit and Humor -- if any difference, it is in duration -- lightning and electric light. Same material, apparently; but one is vivid, and can do damage -- the other fools along and enjoys elaboration.

— Mark Twain

I repeat, sir, that in whatever position you place a woman she is an ornament to society and a treasure to the world. As a sweetheart, she has few equals and no superiors; as a cousin, she is convenient; as a wealthy grandmother with an incurable distemper, she is precious; as a wet-nurse, she has no equal among men. What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.

— Mark Twain

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.

— Mark Twain

I don't give a damn for man that can spell a word only one way.

— Mark Twain

An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I've dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half... I never write metropolis for seven cents, because I can get the same money for city. I never write policeman, because I can get the same price for cop.... I never write valetudinarian at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn't do it for fifteen.

— Mark Twain

A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words... the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.

— Mark Twain

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

— Mark Twain

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.

— Mark Twain

Intellectual work is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward.

— Mark Twain

Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.

— Mark Twain

I do not like work even when someone else does it.

— Mark Twain

Thunder is impressive, but it is lightning that does the work.

— Mark Twain

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

— Mark Twain

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

— Mark Twain

Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are economical in its use.

— Mark Twain

Write without pay until somebody offers to pay you. If nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for.

— Mark Twain

As to the adjective, when in doubt strike it out.

— Mark Twain

Never do wrong when people are looking.

— Mark Twain

It is better to be a young June-bug than an old bird of paradise.

— Mark Twain

So I became a newspaperman. I hated to do it but I couldnt find honest employment.

— 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

Of all Gods creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.

— 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

When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victorymust follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battlebe Thou near them! With themin spiritwe also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with anavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied itfor our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

— Mark Twain

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

— Mark Twain

I think I can say, and say with pride, that we have some legislatures that bring higher prices than any in the world.

— Mark Twain

A jay hasnt got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; and four times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise.

— Mark Twain

To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman.

— Mark Twain

Say the report is exaggerated.

— Mark Twain

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large mattertis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

— Mark Twain

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 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

It ain't so much what we know that gets us into trouble. It's what we know that just ain't so.

— Mark Twain

History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme a lot

— Mark Twain

It is terrible to speak well and be wrong. Mark Twain

— Mark Twain

Put your eggs in one basket - and watch that basket.

— Mark Twain

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

— Mark Twain

When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.

— Mark Twain

April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty- four.

— Mark Twain

The President, throned behind a cable locker with a national flag spread over it, announced the "Reader," who rose up and read that same old Declaration of Independence which we have all listened to so often without paying any attention to what it said; and after that the President piped the Orator of the Day to quarters and he made the same old speech about our national greatness which we so religiously believe and so fervently applaud. Now came the choir into court again, with the complaining instruments, and assaulted "Hail Columbia"; and when victory hung wavering in the scale, George returned with his dreadful wild-goose stop turned on and the choir won, of course. A minister pronounced the benediction, and the patriotic little gathering disbanded. The Fourth of July was safe, as far as the Mediterranean was concerned.

— Mark Twain

July 4. Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so.

— Mark Twain

We [Americans] are the lavishest and showiest and most luxury-loving people on the earth; and at our masthead we fly one true and honest symbol, the gaudiest flag the world has ever seen.

— Mark Twain

The business of the Fourth of July is not perfect as it stands. See what it costs us every year with loss of life, the crippling of thousands with its fireworks and the burning down of property. It is not only sacred to patriotism and universal freedom but to the surgeon, the undertaker, the insurance offices--and they are working it for all it is worth.

— Mark Twain

Thanksgiving Day. Let us 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.

— Mark Twain

They have three Sundays a week in Tangier. The Muhammadans' comes on Friday, the Jews' on Saturday, and that of the Christian Consuls on Sunday.

— Mark Twain

It takes some time to accept and realize that fact that while you have been growing old, your friends have not been standing still, in that matter.

— Mark Twain

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? Is it because we are not the person involved?

— 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

We wish to learn all the curious, outlandish ways of all the different countries, so that we can "show off" and astonish people when we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our untraveled friends with our strange foreign fashions which we can't shake off. All our passengers are paying strict attention to this thing, with the end in view which I have mentioned. The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad. I speak now, of course, in the supposition that the gentle reader has not been abroad, and therefore is not already a consummate ass.

— Mark Twain

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.

— Mark Twain

My heart goes out to anyone who is making his first appearance before an audience of human beings.

— Mark Twain

If we should deal out justice only, in this world, who would escape? No, it is better to be generous, and in the end more profitable, for it gains gratitude for us, and love.

— Mark Twain

There's something in it when a body like the widow or the parson prays, but it don't work for me, and I reckon it don't work for only just the right kind.

— Mark Twain

A baby is an inestimable blessing and bother.

— Mark Twain

Always obey your parents, when they are present.

— Mark Twain

Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.

— Mark Twain

If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way …. Yet he has made a marvelous fight in the world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him.

— Mark Twain

Re: the Bible: It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.

— Mark Twain

We said there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.

— Mark Twain

There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he can’t afford it, and when he can.

— Mark Twain

Man seems to be a rickety poor sort of a thing, any way you take him; a kind of British Museum of infirmities and inferiorities. He is always undergoing repairs. A machine that was as unreliable as he is would have no market.

— Mark Twain

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

— Mark Twain

It will take mind and memory months and possibly years to gather together the details and thus learn and know the whole extent of the loss.

— Mark Twain

He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it— namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.

— Mark Twain

I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself, “All right, then, I’ll GO to hell.”

— Mark Twain

Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

— Mark Twain

Give an Irishman lager for a month, and he’s a dead man. An Irishman is lined with copper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes the copper and is the saving of him, sir.

— Mark Twain

I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.

— Mark Twain

Its name is Public Opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it is the voice of God.

— Mark Twain

I remember when I was a boy and I heard repeated time and time again the phrase, “My country, right or wrong, my country!” How absolutely absurd is such an idea. How absolutely absurd to teach this idea to the youth of the country.

— Mark Twain

My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one’s country, not to its institutions or its officeholders … institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death.

— Mark Twain

There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man’s notion that he is less savage than the other savages.

— Mark Twain

The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet.

— Mark Twain

Tell the truth or trump—but get the trick.

— Mark Twain

The truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

— Mark Twain

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

— Mark Twain

There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.

— Mark Twain

Hunger is the handmaid of genius.

— Mark Twain