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Mark Twain Quotes

1835–1910 United States

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known as Mark Twain, was an American humorist, novelist, writer, and lecturer.

United States
Autobiographers
Comedians
Critics
Humorists

Also known as: Twain, Twain, Mark, Samuel Clemens, Samuel L. Clemens, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Random Mark Twain quote

257 quotes

Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

Biographies are but clothes and buttons of the man — the biography of the man himself cannot be written.

Mark Twain's Autobiography (1924)

Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world — and never will.

Only one thing is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.

Mark Twain's Notebook (1935)

I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatsoever.

It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.

What Is Man? (1906)

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

Letter to an Unidentified Person (1908)

Prosperity is the best protector of principle.

Following the Equator (1897)

To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)

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

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)

Nearly all black and brown skins are beautiful, but a beautiful white skin is rare.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World (1899)

I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog.

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1865)

An experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar.

He is now fast rising from affluence to poverty.

Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's Farm (1869)

Virtue never has been as respectable as money.

The Innocents Abroad (1869)

They spell it "Vinci" and pronounce it "Vinchy". Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.

The Innocents Abroad (1869)

The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice — and always has been.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Mark Twain (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.