Mark Twain

The cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will not sit upon a hot stove lid again. But he won't sit upon a cold stove lid, either.

— Mark Twain

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.

— Mark Twain

Faith is believing what you know ain't so.

— Mark Twain

It was the schoolboy who said, Faith is believing what you know ain't so.

— Mark Twain

Familiarity breeds contempt; and children.

— Mark Twain

We are always too busy for our children; we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them; but the most precious gift, our personal association, which means so much to them, we give grudgingly.

— Mark Twain

Adam was the luckiest man; he had no mother-in-law.

— Mark Twain

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

— Mark Twain

He does not care for flowers. Calls them rubbish, and cannot tell one from another, and thinks it is superior to feel like that.

— Mark Twain

When one has tasted it [Watermelon] he knows what the angels eat.

— Mark Twain

I was young and foolish then; now I am old and foolisher.

— Mark Twain

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

— Mark Twain

Forget and forgive. This is not difficult when properly understood. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy.

— Mark Twain

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

— Mark Twain

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it

— Mark Twain

Fortune knocks at every man's door once in a life, but in a good many cases the man is in a neighboring saloon and does not hear her.

— Mark Twain

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.

— Mark Twain

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are.

— Mark Twain

Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

— Mark Twain

The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.

— Mark Twain

Where a blood relation sobs, an intimate friend should choke up, a distant acquaintance should sigh, a stranger should merely fumble sympathetically with his handkerchief.

— Mark Twain

I did not attend his funeral; but I wrote a nice letter saying I approved of it. [About a politician who had recently died]

— Mark Twain

He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.

— Mark Twain

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered -- either by themselves or by others.

— Mark Twain

Golf is a good walk spoiled.

— Mark Twain

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

— Mark Twain

We have the best government that money can buy.

— Mark Twain

Damn the subjunctive. It brings all our writers to shame.

— Mark Twain

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

— Mark Twain

What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand still a year. It grows -- it must grow; nothing can prevent it.

— Mark Twain

A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.

— Mark Twain

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.

— Mark Twain

To stop smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know; I've done it a thousand times.

— Mark Twain

Happiness ain't a thing in itself --it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant. And so, as soon as the novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it ain't happiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh.

— Mark Twain

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one: keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.

— Mark Twain

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

— Mark Twain

The way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.

— Mark Twain

Heaven goes by favor; if it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

— Mark Twain

The trouble with you Chicago people is that you think you are the best people down here, whereas you are merely the most numerous.

— Mark Twain

History is strewn thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill, but a lie, well told, is immortal.

— Mark Twain

One may make their house a palace of sham, or they can make it a home, a refuge.

— Mark Twain

Honesty is the best policy -- when there is money in it.

— Mark Twain

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

— Mark Twain

There is a great deal of human nature in people.

— Mark Twain

If man had created man, he would be ashamed of his performance.

— Mark Twain

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.

— Mark Twain

The human race was always interesting and we know by its past that it will always continue so, monotonously.

— Mark Twain

Man is a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.

— Mark Twain

Such is the human race. Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.

— Mark Twain

The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.

— Mark Twain

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.

— Mark Twain

A crank is someone with a new idea -- until it catches on.

— Mark Twain

In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made School Boards.

— Mark Twain

I would rather have my ignorance than another man's knowledge, because I have so much of it.

— Mark Twain

When I was fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have him around. When I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.

— Mark Twain

It isn't safe to sit in judgment upon another person's illusion when you are not on the inside. While you are thinking it is a dream, he may be knowing it is a planet.

— Mark Twain

You cannot depend on your judgments when your imagination is out of focus.

— Mark Twain

Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.

— Mark Twain

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up.

— Mark Twain

Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.

— Mark Twain

When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

— Mark Twain

The way it is now, the asylums can hold the sane people but if we tried to shut up the insane we would run out of building materials.

— Mark Twain

As a thinker and planner the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized!

— Mark Twain

Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large defect in your race -- the individual's distrust of his neighbor, and his desire, for safety's or comfort's sake, to stand well in his neighbor's eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish, and always oppress you, affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where the majority of the people were in their secret hearts loyal to any of these institutions.

— Mark Twain

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creatures that cannot.

— Mark Twain

Accident is the name of the greatest of all inventors.

— Mark Twain

True irreverence is disrespect for another man's god.

— Mark Twain

In the real world, nothing happens at the right place at the right time. It is the job of journalists and historians to correct that.

— Mark Twain

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

— Mark Twain

All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty ornery lot. It's the way they're raised.

— Mark Twain

We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter.

— Mark Twain

The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain't so.

— Mark Twain

Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known and I know the rest.

— Mark Twain

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

— Mark Twain

There is no such thing as the Queen's English. The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares!

— Mark Twain

The human race has but one really affective weapon, and that is laughter.

— Mark Twain

Laughter is the greatest weapon we have and we, as humans, use it the least.

— Mark Twain

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

— Mark Twain

To succeed in the other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do.

— Mark Twain

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read.

— Mark Twain

Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.

— Mark Twain

Never learn to do anything. If you don't learn, you will always find someone else to do it for you.

— Mark Twain

A wise man does not waste so good a commodity as lying for naught.

— Mark Twain

A lie can run around the world six times while the truth is still trying to put on its pants.

— Mark Twain

I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won t.

— Mark Twain

One of the striking differences between a cat and a lie is that the cat has only nine lives.

— Mark Twain

Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thought that is forever flowing through one's head.

— Mark Twain

Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

— Mark Twain

There is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought --a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!

— Mark Twain

Be good and you will be lonely.

— Mark Twain

Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.

— Mark Twain

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.

— Mark Twain

The highest perfection of politeness is only a beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of ungraceful and gilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying.

— Mark Twain

Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: The one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it.

— Mark Twain

Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.

— Mark Twain

The master minds of all nations, in all ages, have sprung in affluent multitude from the mass of the nation, and from the mass of the nation only -- not from its privileged classes.

— Mark Twain

Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.

— Mark Twain

There are only two forces that can carry light to all the corners of the globe... the sun in the heavens and the Associated Press down here.

— Mark Twain

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.

— Mark Twain

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

— Mark Twain