Mark Twain Quotes

The two Great Unknowns, the two Illustrious Conjecturabilities! They are the best known unknown persons that have ever drawn breath upon the planet.

I believe I have had the most trouble with a portrait which I painted in installments - the head on one canvas and the bust on another.

But soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, But get thee to a nunnery - go!

I do not allow my schooling to interfere with my education

Labor in loneliness is irksome.

In truth I care little about any party's politics—the man behind it is the important thing.

It is better to support schools than jails.

How superbly brave is the Englishman in the presence of the awfulest forms of danger and death; and how abject in the presence of any and all forms of hereditary rank.

Custom is custom: it is built of brass, boiler-iron, granite; facts, reasonings, arguments have no more effect upon it than the idle winds have upon Gibraltar.

This is the year 1492. I am eighty-two years of age. The things I am going to tell you are things which I saw myself as a child and as a youth.

In the ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the name of Canty, who did not want him.

There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind-the humorous.

You need not expect to get your book right the first time.

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.

School gets in the way of my learning.

Don't go to sleep, so many people die there.

I was born modest, but it didn't last.

Mine was a trained Presbyterian conscience and knew but the one duty - to hunt and harry its slave upon all pretexts and on all occasions, particularly when there was no sense nor reason in it.

Presbyterianism without infant damnation would be like the dog on the train that couldn't be identified because it had lost its tag.

It has taken a weary long time to persuade American Presbyterians to give up infant damnation and try to bear it the best they can.

This is the only sane clerical the earthquake has exposed to view yet.

After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; ... I should be sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass out of my life.

What do you think of the human mind? I mean, in case you think there is a human mind.

In the small town of Hannibal, Missouri, when I was a boy, everybody was poor, but didn't know it; and everybody was comfortable and did know it.

I am losing enough sleep to supply a worn-out army.

Do your duty today and repent tomorrow.

Never mistake motion for progress.

Circumstance - which moves by laws of its own, regardless of parties and policies, and whose decrees are final and must be obeyed by all - and will be

If we had less statemanship we could get along with fewer battleships.

By and by when each nation has 20,000 battleships and 5,000,000 soldiers we shall all be safe and the wisdom of statesmanship will stand confirmed.

Learning to play two pairs is worth about as much as a college education, and about as costly.

A half-educated physician is not valuable. He thinks he can cure everything.

Whenever a copyright law is to be made or altered, then the idiots assemble.

There ain't anything that is so interesting to look at as a place that a book has talked about.

Everything human is pathetic

A powerful agent is the right word: it lights the reader's way and makes it plain.

God rewards gamblers and fools. The crucial thing, when you win, is knowing which you were.

The law is a system that protects everybody who can afford to hire a good lawyer.

Benefit of clergy: Half-rate on the railroad.

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.

Golden rule: Made of hard metal so it could stand severe wear, it not being known at that time that butter would answer.

Good wine needs no bush; a jug is the thing.

Honesty is often the best policy, but sometimes the appearance of it is worth six of it.

It is hard enough luck being a monarch, without being a target also.

Let us save the tomorrows for work.

None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness; but we can try.

Slang in a woman's mouth is not obscene, it only sounds so.

You have heretofore found out, by my teachings, that man is a fool; you are now aware that woman is a damned fool.

Wheresoever she was, there was Eden.

I don't want no better book than what your face is.