Mark Twain Quotes

“Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“Honesty: The best of all the lost arts.”
― Mark Twain

“Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals.”
― Mark Twain

“The source of all humor is not laughter, but sorrow.”
― Mark Twain

“Never have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.”
― Mark Twain

“The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.”
― Mark Twain

“I apologize for such a long letter - I didn't have time to write a short one.”
― Mark Twain

“A man once said, 'All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.' Mark Twain, you know. He had a fine mustache. Men of wisdom so often do.”
― Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone

“Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.”
― Mark Twain

“Huck [Finn] and Tom [Sawyer] represent two viable models of the American Character. They exist side by side in every American and every American action. America is, and always has been, undecided about whether it will be the United States of Tom or the United States of Huck. The United States of Tom looks at misery and says: Hey, I didn't do it. It looks at inequity and says: All my life I have busted my butt to get where I am, so don't come crying to me. Tom likes kings, codified nobility, unquestioned privilege. Huck likes people, fair play, spreading the truck around. Whereas Tom knows, Huck wonders. Whereas Huck hopes, Tom presumes. Whereas Huck cares, Tom denies. These two parts of the American Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the nation, and come to think of it, these two parts of the World Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the world, and the hope of the nation and of the world is to embrace the Huck part and send the Tom part back up the river, where it belongs.”
― George Saunders, The Braindead Megaphone

“Each of you, for himself or herself, by himself or herself, and on his or her own responsibility, must speak. It is a solemn and weighty responsibility and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government or politician. Each must decide for himself or herself alone what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man, to decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor. It is traitorous both against yourself and your country.
Let men label you as they may, if you alone of all the nation decide one way, and that way be the right way by your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country, hold up your head for you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
― Mark Twain, The Bible According to Mark Twain: Irreverent Writings on Eden, Heaven, and the Flood by America's Master Satirist

“His head was an hour-glass; it could stow an idea, but it had to do it a grain at a time, not the whole idea at once.”
― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

“Why should I have to hide the fact that I don't believe there’s a supreme being? There’s no proof of it. There’s no harm in saying you’re an atheist. It doesn't mean you treat people any differently. I live by the Golden Rule to do unto others, as you'd want to be treated.

I just simply don't believe in religion, and I don’t believe necessarily that there’s a supreme being that watches over all of us. I follow the teachings of George Carlin. George said he worshipped the sun. He was a fellow atheist. I’m in good company … Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, Charles Darwin. It’s not like I’m not with good company and intelligent people. There have been some good, intelligent atheists who have lived in the world.”
― Jesse Ventura

“The signs of excessive indulgence in this destructive pastime are easily detectable. They are these: A disposition to eat, to drink, to smoke, to meet together convivially, to laugh, to joke, and tell indelicate stories— and mainly, a yearning to paint pictures.”
― Mark Twain, On Masturbation

“Heaven is by favor; if it were by merit your dog would go in and you would stay out. Of all the creatures ever made (man) is the most detestable. Of the entire brood, he is the only one... that possesses malice. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain.”
― Mark Twain

“Ours is a terrible religion. The fleets of the world could swim in spacious comfort in the innocent blood it has spilt.”
― Mark Twain, On Religion

“I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain”
― Mike McManus

“I read from Mark Twain's lips one or two of his good stories. He has his own way of thinking, saying and doing everything. I feel the twinkle of his eye in his handshake. Even while he utters his cynical wisdom in an indescribably droll voice, he makes you feel that his heart is a tender Iliad of human sympathy.”
― Helen Keller, The Story of My Life

“Mark Twain der ki: 'Cennet ve cehennem hakkında ileri geri konuşmam, çünkü her ikisinde de dostlarım var.”
― Murat Menteş, Dublörün Dilemması

“It don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for him anyway.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered—either by themselves or by others.”
― Sean Patrick, Nikola Tesla: Imagination and the Man That Invented the 20th Century

“I like Joan of Arc best of all my books; and it is the best; I know it perfectly well. And besides, it furnished me seven times the pleasure afforded me by any of the others; twelve years of preparation, and two years of writing. The others need no preparation and got none.”
― Mark Twain

“Wherever he found his speech growing too modern -- which was about every sentence or two -- he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as "exceeding sore," "and it came to pass," etc., and made things satisfactory again. "And it came to pass" was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet.”
― Mark Twain, Roughing It

“I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before.”
― Mark Twain

“You can find in a text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it and the mirror of you imagination. You may not see your ears, but they will be there.”
― Mark Twain, The Celebrated Jumping Frog and Other Stories

“The highest perfection of politeness is only a beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of graceful and gilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying.”
― Mark Twain, On the Decay of the Art of Lying

“Some people scorn a cat and think it not an essential; but the Clemens tribe are not of these.”
― Mark Twain

“Boldness breeds boldness." Mark Twain”
― Iota Angel, The Island Beyond the Coast - Book II: A real-life journey set in Greece during the 19th century with Bayard Taylor & Mark Twain

“Solemn, grand, and beautiful, it will always remain in our memories." Mark Twain”
― Iota Angel, The Island Beyond the Coast - Book II: A real-life journey set in Greece during the 19th century with Bayard Taylor & Mark Twain

“I knew I had become a successful author of quotes when my thoughts started appearing alongside those of Mark Twain, Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, Confucius, Buddha, and so many other notable people in history.”
― Steven Magee