Famous Quotes by Mark Twain (337 Quotations)

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

Mark Twain – [Laughter]

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 – [Kings]

All say, How hard it is that we have to die — a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

Mark Twain – [Death and Dying]

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

Mark Twain – [Success]

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

Mark Twain – [Right and Rightness]

An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I've dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half… I never write ''metropolis'' for seven cents, because I can get the same money for ''city.'' I never write ''policeman,'' because I can get the same price for ''cop.''… I never write ''valetudinarian'' at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn't do it for fifteen.

Mark Twain – [Words]

Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born –a hundred million years –and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together. There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume, when the opportunity comes.

Mark Twain – [Death and Dying]

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 – [Materialism]

Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.

Mark Twain – [Impossibility]

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 – [Insects]

As to the adjective, when in doubt strike it out.

Mark Twain – [Writers and Writing]

Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough.

Mark Twain – [Appearance]

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

Mark Twain – [Health]

Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.

Mark Twain – [Dress]

Be good and you will be lonely.

Mark Twain – [Loneliness]

Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.

Mark Twain – [Virtue]

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? That is a peculiar condition of society which enables a whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished speculator in lands and mines this remark: — ''I wasn't worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two millions of dollars.''

Mark Twain – [Credit]

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

Mark Twain – [Knowledge]

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

Mark Twain – [Biography]

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

Mark Twain – [Marriage]