Mark twain quotes

I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.

Courage is not the lack of fear. It is acting in spite of it.

If you have no will to change it, you have no right to criticize it.

I saw a startling sight today, a politician with his hands in his own pockets.

Some people give their problems swimming lessons instead of drowning them.

We have the best government that money can buy.

The trouble with the world is not that people know too little; it's that they know so many things that just aren't so.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

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

There is no security in life, only opportunity.

If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.

Life is short, Break the Rules. Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably And never regret ANYTHING That makes you smile.

I was educated once - it took me years to get over it.

The newspaper that obstructs the law on a trivial pretext, for money's sake, is a dangerous enemy to the public weal. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.

Knowledge becomes wisdom only after it has been put to good use.

Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of itself.

If we would learn what the human race really is at bottom, we need only observe it in election times.

Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

We are all ignorant; just about different things.

It's better to be an optimist who is sometimes wrong than a pessimist who is always right

Why waste your money looking up your family tree? Just go into politics and your opponent will do it for you.

The world doesn't owe you anything. It was here first.

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

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

Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

Temper is what gets most of us into trouble. Pride is what keeps us there.

Unused talents gives you no advantage over someone who has no talent at all.

The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think.

Most men die at 27, we just bury them at 72.

If ignorance is bliss, why isn't the world happier?

If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.

Adam was the luckiest man in the world. He had no mother-in-law.

Behind every successful man, there is a woman - And behind every unsuccessful man, there are two.

Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

The inability to forget is far more devastating than the inability to remember.

A tax is a fine for doing well, a fine is a tax for doing wrong.

I cannot help but notice that there is no problem between us that cannot be solved by your departure.

The government is merely a servant―merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.

Those who do not read have no advantage over those who cannot read.

Do not complain about growing old. It is a privilege denied to many.

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?

Some people get an education without going to college. The rest get it after they get out.

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.

Additional problems are the offspring of poor solutions.

God created war so that Americans would learn geography.

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

Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.

Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.

Strange a God who mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness, then invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none Himself; who frowns upon crimes yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon Himself; and finally with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship Him!

If you want to change the future, you must change what you're doing in the present.

Comparison is the death of joy.

When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Kentucky, because everything there happens 20 years after it happens anywhere else.

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 man.

A Patriot is someone who stands for his country always, and for his government when it is deserved.

I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.

To be satisfied with what one has; that is wealth.

Few things are more irritating than when someone who is wrong is also very effective in making his point.

Congress: America's only true criminal class.

If you can't stand solitude, perhaps others find you boring as well.

Never miss an opportunity to shut up.

Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.

There is nothing to be learned from the second kick of a mule.

Don't wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.

Nothing spoils a good story like the arrival of an eyewitness.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Don't dream your life, but live your dream

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

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

A little more kindness, A little less speed, A little more giving, A little less greed, A little more smile, A little less frown, A little less kicking, A man while he's down, A little more "We", A little less "I", A little more laugh, A little less cry, A little more flowers, On the pathway of life, And fewer on graves, At the end of the strife.

To be great, truly great, you have to be the kind of person who makes the others around you great.

A little lie can travel half way 'round the world while Truth is still lacing up her boots.

Success is a journey, not a destination. It requires constant effort, vigilance and reevaluation.

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.

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.

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

A good lawyer knows the law; a clever one takes the judge to lunch.

A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo and doesn't.

Most people can't bear to sit in church for an hour on Sundays. How are they supposed to live somewhere very similar to it for eternity?

An open mind leaves a chance for someone to drop a worthwhile thought in it.

If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.

There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press

A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.

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

They did not know it was impossible so they did it

How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and [how] hard it is to undo that work again!

Great things can happen when you don't care who gets the credit.

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.

Just because you’re taught that something’s right and everyone believes it’s right, it don’t make it right.

The nation is divided, half patriots and half traitors, and no man can tell which from which.

There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy bad principles and recreate good ones; it can lift men to angelship.

Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.

Some people bring joy wherever they go, and some people bring joy whenever they go.

If we were meant to talk more than listen, we would have two mouths and one ear.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

Those who do not read the news are uninformed. Those who do are misinformed.

The older I get, the more clearly I remember things that never happened.

If your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

Worrying is like paying a debt you don't owe.

Consider the average intelligence of the common man, then realize 50% are even stupider.

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

Make your vocation your vacation. That is the secret to success.

Every civilization carries the seeds of its own destruction, and the same cycle shows in them all. The Republic is born, flourishes, decays into plutocracy, and is captured by the shoemaker whom the mercenaries and millionaires make into a king. The people invent their oppressors, and the oppressors serve the function for which they are invented.

You meet people who forget you. You forget people you meet. But sometimes you meet those people you can't forget. Those are your 'friends

I wonder if God created man because He was disappointed with the monkey.

If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be — a Christian.

No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot

Of all the animals, man is the only one that lies.

Our lives, our liberty, and our property are never in greater danger than when Congress is in session.

It is wiser to find out than to suppose.

The truth hurts, but silence kills.

It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.

I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places.

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.

When I was 17, my father was so stupid, I didn't want to be seen with him in public. When I was 24, I was amazed at how much the old man had learned in just 7 years.

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

A pessimist is a well-informed optimist.