Mark Twain

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. - Mark Twain

Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside. - Mark Twain

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. - Mark Twain

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain

It's not the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog. - Mark Twain

October is one of those dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, November, and December. - Mark Twain

Wagner's music is better than it sounds. - Mark Twain

Few sinners are saved after the first 20 minutes of a sermon. - Mark Twain

God has put something noble and good into every heart His hand created.  - Mark Twain

There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It isn't because the book is not there and worth being written -- it is only because the right form of the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and if you fail to find that form the story will not tell itself. - Mark Twain

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. - Mark Twain

If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.  - Mark Twain

Write without pay until somebody offers to pay you. If nobody offers within three years, sawing wood is what you were intended for. - Mark Twain

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. - Mark Twain

We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the 15 others which we do possess. - Mark Twain

My father was an amazing man. The older I got, the smarter he got. - Mark Twain

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. - Mark Twain

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

Golf is a good walk spoiled. - Mark Twain

Conscience, man's moral medicine chest. - Mark Twain

When angry, count four; when very angry, swear. - Mark Twain

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesome returns of conjectures out of such trifling investment of fact. - Mark Twain

The average American may not know who his grandfather was. But the American was, however, one degree better off than the average Frenchman who, as a rule, was in considerable doubt as to who his father was.  - Mark Twain

Behold, the fool saith 'Put not all thine eggs in the one basket' - which is but a manner of saying, 'Scatter your money and your attention;' but the wise man saith, 'Put all your eggs in the one basket and - watch that basket.'" - Mark Twain

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. - Mark Twain

The altar cloth of one aeon is the doormat of the next. - Mark Twain

The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful. - Mark Twain

Stay away from those people who try to disparage your ambitions. Small minds will always do that, but great minds will give you a feeling that you can become great too. - Mark Twain

No man or woman knows what perfect love is, until they have been married a quarter of a century. - Mark Twain

A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt. - Mark Twain

Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with. - Mark Twain

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner. - Mark Twain

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. - Mark Twain

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. - Mark Twain

It is not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that make horseraces. (from "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar," 1894)  - Mark Twain

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward, it is not a compliment to say it is brave. - Mark Twain

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

The secret source of humour itself is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humour in heaven.  - Mark Twain

Always do right- this will gratify some and astonish the rest. - Mark Twain

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. - 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

When in doubt, tell the truth. - Mark Twain

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. - Mark Twain

Get your facts first and then you can distort them as much as you wish. - Mark Twain

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

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure. - Mark Twain

I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anybody who can tell me what they want. - Mark Twain

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read. - Mark Twain

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them. - Mark Twain

If there are no cigars in heaven, I shall not go. - Mark Twain

Familiarity breeds contempt. How accurate that is. The reason we hold truth in such respect is because we have so little opportunity to get familiar with it. - Mark Twain

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. - Mark Twain

Buy land. They've stopped making it. - Mark Twain

In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing. - Mark Twain, Mark Twain's Autobiography, 1959

A house without a cat, and a well-fed, well-petted, and properly revered cat, may be a perfect house, perhaps, but how can it prove its title? - Mark Twain, The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson