Quotes by Mark Twain

A kiss is something you need both hands for.

Preserve your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but not live.

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.

Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life.

Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles.

I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

If you tell the truth you do not need a good memory.

Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

German literacy ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.

'Classic' - a book which people praise and don't read.

'You can go home now,' Tom told us.
'We'll meet next week. Then we can rob somebody and kill some people.'

That's the difference between governments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do.

I went often to look at the collection of curiosities in Heidelberg Castle, and one day I surprised the keeper of it with my German. I spoke entirely in that language. He was greatly interested; and after I had talked a while he said my German was very rare, possibly a 'unique'; and wanted to add it to his museum.

Maybe not, maybe not. Cheer up, Becky, and let's go on trying.

Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.

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

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

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.

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

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

Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times.

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 of them.

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

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.

An honest man in politics shines more there than he would elsewhere.

The Germans are exceedingly fond of Rhine wines; they are put up in tall, slender bottles, and are considered a pleasant beverage. One tells them from vinegar by the label.

Who knows, he may grow up to be President someday, unless they hang him first.

Ah, if he could only die temporarily!

You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.

When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

The higher the pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it, the higher shall be his pay in cash, also.

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

Brooklyn praise is half slander.

This is the fairest picture on our planet, the most enchanting to look upon, the most satisfying to the eye and the spirit. To see the sun sink down, drowned on his pink and purple and golden floods, and overwhelm Florence with tides of color that make all the sharp lines dim and faint and turn the solid city to a city of dreams, is a sight to stir the coldest nature, and make a sympathetic one drunk with ecstasy.

In Boston they ask, how much does he know? In New York, how much is he worth? In Philadelphia, who were his parents?

April 1 is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.

December is the toughest month of the year. Others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, October, August, and February.

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.

Whisky to a Scotsman is as innocent as milk to the rest of the human race.

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

Golf is a good walk spoiled.

In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

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.

I don't believe there is anything in the whole earth that you can't learn in Berlin except the German language.