Mark Twain Quotes

I can't do no literary work for the rest of this year because I'm meditating another lawsuit and looking around for a defendant.

I will remark in the way of general information, that in California, that land of felicitous nomenclature, the literary name of this sort of stuff is "hogwash"

The timid man yearns for full value and demands a tenth. The bold man strikes for double value and compromises on par.

Denial is much more then an Egyptian River.

Take your mind out every now and then and dance on it. It is getting all caked up.

What a lie it is to call this a free country, where none but the unworthy and undeserving may swear.

We all like to see people sea-sick when we are not ourselves.

You may have noticed that the less I know about a subject the more confidence I have, and the more new light I throw on it.

When it comes down to pure ornamental cursing, the native American is gifted above the sons of men.

There isn't anything you can't stand if you are only born and bred to it.

The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing, it is the thing to watch over and care for and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous. . . .

Ours is the "land of the free"-nobody denies that-nobody challenges it. (Maybe it is because we won't let other people testify.)

Our consciences take no notice of pain inflicted on others until it reaches a point where it gives pain to us.

Never waste a lie; you never know when you may need it.

In writing, I shall always confine myself strictly to the truth, except when it is attended with inconvenience.

In all my travels the thing that has impressed me the most is the universal brotherhood of man-what there is of it.

I like criticism, but it must be my way.

Every time I reform in one direction I go overboard in another.

Adam was the author of sin, and I wish he had taken out an international copyright on it.

To place man properly at the present time, he stands somewhere between the angels and the French.

Steal a chicken if you get a chance, Huck, because if you don't want it, someone else does and a good deed ain't never forgotten.

a fully belly is little worth where the mind is starved.

My land, the power of training! Of influence! Of education! It can bring a body up to believe anything.

I do not know what we should do without the pulpit. We could better spare the sun-the moon, anyway.

I don't mind what the opposition say of me so long as they don't tell the truth about me. But when they descend to telling the truth about me I consider that this is taking an unfair advantage.

Truth is stranger than fiction-to some people, but I am measurably familiar with it.

Never learn to do anything: if you don't learn, you'll always find someone else to do it for you.

A dollar picked up in the road is more satisfaction to you than the ninety-and -nine which you had to work for, and money won at faro or in stock snuggles into your heart in the same way.

There is not a single human characteristic that can be safely labeled as American.

The Germans are exceedingly fond of Rhine wines; they are put up in tall, slender bottles, and are considered a pleasant beverage. One tells them from vinegar by the label.

Creed and opinion change with time, and their symbols perish; but Literature and its temples are sacred to all creeds and inviolate.

It's my opinion that every one I know has morals, though I wouldn't like to ask. I know I have. But I'd rather teach them than practice them any day. "Give them to others"-that's my motto.

We get our morals from books. I didn't get mine from books, but I know that morals do come from books- theoretically at least.

The writing begins when you’ve finished. Only then do you know what you’re trying to say.

The only very marked difference between the average civilized man and the average savage is that the one is gilded and the other is painted.

If to be interesting is to be uncommonplace, it is becoming a question, with me, if there are any commonplace people

We do not get ice-cream every where, and so, when we do, we are apt to dissipate to excess.

When whole races and peoples conspire to propagate gigantic mute lies in the interest of tyrannies and shams, why should we care anything about the trifling lies told by individuals?

If you've got a nice fresh corpse, fetch him out!

The worst thing you can do to a man is to tell him he can have what he wants.

If the bubble reputation can be obtained only at the cannon's mouth, I am willing to go there for it, provided the cannon is empty.

Taking the pledge will not make bad liquor good, but it will improve it.

There isn't a Parallel of Latitude but thinks it would have been the Equator if it had had its rights.

Nothing is made in vain, but the fly came near it.

The first half of my life I went to school, the second half of my life I got an education.

If true, rarely beautiful. If beautiful, rarely true.

We can't always have the beautiful aspect of things. Let us make the most of our sights that are beautiful and let the others go

Music is a good thing; and after all that soul-butter and hogwash, I never see it freshen up things so, and sound so honest and bully.

We often feel sad in the presence of music without words; and often more than that in the presence of music without music.

How unfortunate and how narrowing a thing it is for a man to have wealth who makes a god of it instead of a servant