Mark Twain Quotes

All right, then, I'll go to hell.

Who knows, he may grow up to be President someday, unless they hang him first!" Aunt Polly about Tom Sawyer

There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.

Why is it that, among men, physical courage is a trait so plenteous yet moral courage is a trait so rare?

Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world and it's efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read-

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.

I am not the editor of a newspaper and shall always try to do right and be good so that God will not make me one.

It is strange the way the ignorant and inexperienced so often and so undeservedly succeed when the informed and the experienced fail.

You may say organize, organize, organize; but there may be so much organization that it will interfere with the work to be done.

Don't live in the past, don't ponder about the future, stay at the PRESENT moment NOW...always.

One must travel, to learn.

The miracle or the power that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application and perseverance under the promptings of a brave, determined spirit.

Who are we to create a heaven and hell for ourselves, excluding animals and plants in the bargain, just because we have the power to rationalize?

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!

Heroine: girl who is perfectly charming to live with, in a book.

I fell in love with the most cordial and sociable city in the Union.

Shut the door not that it lets in the cold but that it lets out the coziness.

Let us consider that we are all insane. It will explain us to each other. It will unriddle many riddles

It's a good thing for a dog to have fleas; keeps his mind off being a dog.

To do good is noble. To tell others to do good is even nobler and much less trouble.

One holds a bottle of red wine by the neck, a woman by the waist, and a bottle of champagne by the derriere.

In my age, as in my youth, night brings me many a deep remorse. I realize that from the cradle up I have been like the rest of the race - never quite sane in the night.

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.

What a man sees in the human race is merely himself in the deep and honest privacy of his own heart. Byron despised the race because he despised himself. I feel as Byron did, and for the same reason.

Every inventor is a crackpot until his idea succeeds.

A man has no business to be depressed by a disappointment, anyway; he ought to make up his mind to get even.

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail.

Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom.

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

France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.

When you catch an adjective, kill it.

I can always tell which is the front end of a horse, but beyond that, my art is not above the ordinary.

Citizenship is what makes a republic - monarchies can get along without it.

For the majority of us, the past is a regret, the future an experiment

I think a compliment ought always to precede a complaint, where one is possible, because it softens resentment and insures for the complaint a courteous and gentle reception.

I don't want my girl to be so skinny she can knife me with her knee.

What, then, is the true Gospel of consistency? Change. Who is the really consistent man? The man who changes. Since change is the law of his being, he cannot be consistent if he stick in a rut.

I'm glad I did it, partly because it was worth it, but mostly because I shall never have to do it again.

If I had more time, I would have written less.

I have always been rather better treated in San Francisco than I actually deserved.

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

Children and fools always speak the truth

Jane Austen's books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.

What marriage is to morality, a properly conducted licensed liquor traffic is to sobriety.

Do right and you will be conspicuous.

They do say that when a man starts down hill everybody is ready to help him with a kick, and I suppose it is so.

There is no family in America without a clock, and consequently there is no fair pretext for the usual Sunday medley of dreadful sounds that issues from our steeples.

It is your human environment that makes climate

We like a man to come right out and say what he thinks- if we agree with him.