85 Mark Twain Quotes About Life, Love

Mark Twain was more than the man who created iconic characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and wrote portraits of late-19th century Americana. Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was a provocateur of his day: Witty, heartfelt, and happy to challenge those in power using his pen, which was far mightier than any sword. Twain’s writing style, which often included humor and irony, was innovative and ahead of its time. He tackled difficult and controversial subjects, such as racism and imperialism, with a unique perspective that resonates with readers even today. Additionally, his storytelling ability, memorable characters, and vivid descriptions have made his works enduring classics of American literature. Twain’s impact on American culture and society continues to be felt, and he remains an iconic figure in the world of literature.

Mark Twain Quotes

#1. “Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” ~ Mark Twain

#2. “But hunger is pride’s master.” ~ Mark Twain

#3. “Never put off till tomorrow what may be done the day after tomorrow just as well.” ~ Mark Twain

#4. “Washington dreamed his way along the street, his fancy flitting from grain to hogs, from hogs to banks, from banks to eye-water, from eye-water to Tennessee Land, and lingering but a feverish moment upon each of these fascinations.” ~ Mark Twain

#5. “Nobody knows anything you know, and a woman can guess a good deal nearer than a man.” ~ Mark Twain

#6. “His head was an hourglass; it could stow an idea, but it had to do it a grain at a time, not the whole idea at once.” ~ Mark Twain

#7. “Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.” ~ Mark Twain

#8. “A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.” ~ Mark Twain

#9. “He brought us to clear down to the ground, nearly. He’s an honest soul and means the very best in the world, but I’m afraid, I’m afraid he’s too flighty.” ~ Mark Twain

#10. “But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time. Tom presently began to drift insensibly back into the concerns of his life again. What if he turned his back, now, and disappeared mysteriously?. . [H]e would join the Indians . . . He would be a pirate! That was it! Now his future lay plain before him, and glowing with unimaginable splendor.” ~ Mark Twain

Inspirational Mark Twain Quotes For Success In Life

#11. “No. No creature can be honorably required to go counter to the law of his nature — the Law of God.” ~ Mark Twain

#12. “Now we’ll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer’s gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood.” ~ Mark Twain

#13. “The average man doesn’t like trouble and danger.” ~ Mark Twain

#14. “In a moment all the heavy sorrow and misery which sleep had banished were upon him again, and he realized that he was no longer a petted prince in a palace, with the adoring eyes of a nation upon him, but a pauper, an outcast, clothed in rags, prisoner in a den fit only for beasts, and consorting with beggars and thieves.” ~ Mark Twain

#15. “He is a marvel — man is! I would I knew who invented him.” ~ Mark Twain

#16. “With courage, you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity.” ~ Mark Twain

#17. “Kings cannot ennoble thee, thou good, great soul, for One who is higher than kings hath done that for thee; but a king can confirm thy nobility to men.” ~ Mark Twain

#18. “To the young American, here or elsewhere, the paths to fortune are innumerable and all open; There is an invitation in the air and success in all his wide horizon.” ~ Mark Twain

#19. “I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the “lower animals” (so-called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me.” ~ Mark Twain

#20. “When in doubt, tell the truth.” ~ Mark Twain

Mark Twain Quotes – Inspirational and Witty Words

#21. “Tom was a glittering hero once more—the pet of the old, the envy of the young. His name even went into immortal print, for the village paper magnified him. Some believed he would be President, yet, if he escaped hanging.” ~ Mark Twain

#22. “He lay down upon a sumptuous divan, and proceeded to instruct himself with honest zeal.” ~ Mark Twain

#23. “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” ~ Mark Twain

#24. ″ It shows you that when people have left a reproachful vacancy in a contract they can be as shady about it in Bibles as elsewhere.” ~ Mark Twain

#25. ″… Miss Alice is a great friend of Harry’s, who is always trying to build a house by beginning at the top.” ~ Mark Twain

#26. “What dost thou know of suffering and oppression? I and my people know, but not thou.” ~ Mark Twain

#27. “You ought never to “sass” old people—unless they “sass” you first.” ~ Mark Twain

#28. “It is most difficult to understand the disposition of the Bible God, it is such a confusion of contradictions; of watery instabilities and iron firmness; of goody-goody abstract morals made out of words, and concreted hell-born ones made out of acts; of fleeting kindness repented of in permanent malignities.” ~ Mark Twain

#29. “A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.” ~ Mark Twain

#30. “When I am king they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved.” ~ Mark Twain

Mark Twain Quotes on Politics and Religion

#31. “Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon human promises.” ~ Mark Twain

#32. ″… we had taken his silence as a sort of encouragement; necessarily, then, this talk of his was a disappointment to us, for it showed we had made no impression upon him… we knew then how the missionary must feel when he has been cherishing a glad hope and has seen it blighted.” ~ Mark Twain

#33. “I don’t want no better book than what your face is.” ~ Mark Twain

#34. “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” ~ Mark Twain

#35. “I have found out that there ain’t the no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.” ~ Mark Twain

#36. “When I come to mine own again, I will always honor little children, remembering how that these trusted me and believed me in my time of trouble; whilst they that were older, and thought themselves wiser, mocked at me and held me for a liar.” ~ Mark Twain

#37. “Never have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.” ~ Mark Twain

#38. “Death—and a violent death—for these poor unfortunates! The thought wrung Tom’s heartstrings. The spirit of compassion took control of him, to the exclusion of all other considerations; he never thought of the offended laws, or the grief or loss that these three criminals had inflicted upon their victims, he could think of nothing but the scaffold and the grisly fate hanging over the heads of the condemned. His concern made him even forget, for the moment, that he was but the false shadow of a king, not the substance.” ~ Mark Twain

#39. “The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.” ~ Mark Twain

#40. “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.” ~ Mark Twain

#41. “Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered – either by themselves or by others.” ~ Mark Twain

#42. “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.” ~ Mark Twain

#43. “Oh come, now, you don’t mean to let on that you like it?” The brush continued to move. “Like it? Well, I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth—stepped back to note the effect—added a touch here and there—criticized the effect again—Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said: “Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.” ~ Mark Twain

#44. “The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.” ~ Mark Twain

#45. “When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction.” ~ Mark Twain

#46. “I said it was a brutal thing.” “No, it was a human thing. You should not insult the brutes by such a misuse of that word; they have not deserved it.” ~ Mark Twain

#47. “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” ~ Mark Twain

#48. “Your country and mine is an interesting one, but there is nothing there that is half so interesting as the human mind.” ~ Mark Twain

#49. “The elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time.” ~ Mark Twain

#50. “Providentially. That is the word. For the fly had not been left behind by accident. No, the hand of Providence was in it. There are no accidents. All things that happen, happen for a purpose. They are foreseen from the beginning of time, they are ordained from the beginning of time. ~ Mark Twain

#51. “Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts or happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever flowing through one’s head.” ~ Mark Twain

#52. “Their garment? Have they but one?” “Ah, good your Worship, what would they do with more? Truly they have not two bodies each.” ~ Mark Twain

#53. “That’s just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he doesn’t want to take no consequences for it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain’t no disgrace. That was my fix exactly.” ~ Mark Twain

#54. “Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.” ~ Mark Twain

#55. ″‘Then shall the king’s law be the law of mercy from this day, and never more be the law of blood! Up from thy knees and away! To the Tower and say the king decrees the duke of Norfolk shall not die!’ The words were caught up and carried eagerly from lip to lip far and wide over the hall, and as Hertford hurried from the presence, another prodigious shout burst forth— ‘The reign of blood is ended! Long live Edward, King of England!‘” ~ Mark Twain

#56. “Jim said that bees won’t sting idiots, but I didn’t believe that, because I tried them lots of times myself and they wouldn’t sting me.” ~ Mark Twain

#57. “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” ~ Mark Twain

#58. “Saturday morning came, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart . . . There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step. The locust trees were in bloom and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air.” ~ Mark Twain

#59. “Explosive and was expected to blow him up.” ~ Mark Twain

#60. “Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.” ~ Mark Twain

#61. “Huckleberry was cordially hated and dreaded by all the mothers of the town because he was idle, and lawless, and vulgar, and bad – and because all their children admired him so, and delighted in his forbidden society, and wished they dared to be like him.” ~ Mark Twain

#62. “You can’t pray a lie – I found that out.” ~ Mark Twain

#63. “When I come to mine own again, I will always honor little children, remembering how that these trusted me and believed me in my time of trouble; whilst they that were older, and thought themselves wiser, mocked at me and held me for a liar.” ~ Mark Twain

#64. “It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.” ~ Mark Twain

#65. “Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain’t got no business doing wrong when he ain’t ignorant and knows better.” ~ Mark Twain

#66. “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” ~ Mark Twain

#67. “Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.” ~ Mark Twain

#68. “I know very well why [the words] wouldn’t come. It was because my heart wasn’t right; it was because I wasn’t square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all.” ~ Mark Twain

#69. “Only the mad can be happy, and not many of those.” ~ Mark Twain

#70. “What’s the use you learning to do right when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?” ~ Mark Twain

#71. ″… every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them, and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.” ~ Mark Twain

#72. “I could forgive the boy, now, if he’d committed a million sins!” ~ Mark Twain

#73. “The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.” ~ Mark Twain

#74. “He is mad, but he is my son, and England’s heir; and, mad or sane, still shall reign!” ~ Mark Twain

#75. “The law roasted her to death at a slow fire.” ~ Mark Twain

#76. ″‘And always we had wars, and more wars, and still other wars–all over Europe, all over the world. Sometimes in the private interest of royal families,’ Satan said, ‘sometimes to crush a weak nation; but never a war started by the aggressor for any clean purpose–there is no such war in the history of the race.‘” ~ Mark Twain

#77. “A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.” ~ Mark Twain

#78. “The tiger — yes. The law of his nature is ferocity. The law of his nature is the Law of God. He cannot disobey it.” ~ Mark Twain

#79. “Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.” ~ Mark Twain

#80. “Five and twenty sturdy budges, bulks, files, clapperdogeons, and maunders, counting the dells and doxies and other morts. Most are here, the rest are wandering eastward, along the winter lay. We follow at dawn.” ~ Mark Twain

#81. “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; the truth isn’t.” ~ Mark Twain

#82. “They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than President of the United States forever.” ~ Mark Twain

#83. “I don’t like to commit myself to heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.” ~ Mark Twain

#84. “He has no traditions to bind him or guide him, and his impulse is to break away from the occupation his father has followed, and make a new way for himself.” ~ Mark Twain

#85. “Honesty: The best of all the lost arts.” ~ Mark Twain

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