257 quotes
By his father he is English, by his mother he is American—to my mind the blend which makes the perfect man.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Papers of the Adam Family (1939)
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure.
There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.
License of the Press (1873)
Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)
What is the difference between a taxidermist & a tax-collector? The taxidermist only takes your skin.
Mark Twain's Notebook (1935)
H'aint we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)
The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal.
Papers of the Adam Family (1939)
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.
Mark Twain in Eruption: Hitherto Unpublished Pages About Men and Events (1940)
The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
Definition of a classic — something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.
Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
Following the Equator (1897)
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.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it.
A crowded police docket is the surest of all signs that trade is brisk and money plenty.
Roughing It (1872)
Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.
Mark Twain's Notebook (1935)