42 Mark Twain Quotes

Enjoy sharp, humorous, and thought-provoking quotes from Mark Twain that still resonate with modern life.

42 Mark Twain Quotes

Delight in 42 timeless Mark Twain quotes full of wit, wisdom, and humor. Explore the clever observations and life lessons from one of America’s greatest literary figures.


Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.

Mark Twain

A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.

Mark Twain

Mark Twain Quotes

3. Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

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

Mark Twain

There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.

Mark Twain

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

Mark Twain

Good judgement is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement.

Mark Twain

Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.

Mark Twain

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, then Success is sure.

Mark Twain

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

Mark Twain

We are always anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.

Mark Twain

A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.

Mark Twain

All creatures kill, there seems to be no exception; but of the whole list, man is the only one that kills for fun.

Mark Twain

I was born lazy. I am no lazier now than I was forty years ago, but that is because I reached the limit forty years ago. You can’t go beyond possibility.

Mark Twain

No accident ever comes late; it always arrives precisely on time.

Mark Twain

Mark Twain Quotes

16. How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again.

Whenever the human race assembles to a number exceeding four, it cannot stand free speech.

Mark Twain

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

Mark Twain

Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.

Mark Twain

Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.

Mark Twain

Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.

Mark Twain

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

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 creature.

Mark Twain

Everybody’s private motto: It’s better to be popular than right.

Mark Twain

Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.

Mark Twain

As I slowly grow wise, I briskly grow cautious.

Mark Twain

A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.

Mark Twain

Mark Twain Quotes

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

I wanted to damage every man in the place, and every woman; and not in their bodies or in their estate, but in their vanity, the place where feeble and foolish people are most vulnerable.

Mark Twain

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

Mark Twain

Related: 50 Awesome Life Quotes By Famous People

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

Mark Twain

I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.

Mark Twain

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

Mark Twain

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

Mark Twain

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.

Mark Twain

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.

Mark Twain

A crowded police docket is the surest of all signs that trade is brisk and money plenty.

Mark Twain

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.

Mark Twain

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.

Mark Twain

Man is the Only Animal that Blushes, or needs to.

Mark Twain

The only 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

Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was lauded as the “greatest humorist (the United States) has produced”, and William Faulkner called him “the father of American literature”. Wikipedia

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