100 Best Ever Mark Twain Quotes From The Iconic American Writer

Mark Twain was an American writer, lecturer, publisher, and entrepreneur.

Mark Twain is one of the most celebrated writers of all time. His most famous works were 'The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer' and 'The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn'.

Quotes are a great insight to a person, so we bring you the best Mark Twain quotes that will have you thinking and laughing at the same time here. If you like these Mark Twain quotes, check out these Mark Twain cat quotes and Tom Sawyer quotes too.

The Best Mark Twain Quotes About Life

These Mark Twain quotes on life are the best insight you can get on the subject.

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

-Mark Twain.

2.“Clothes make the man.”

― Mark Twain.

3.“The fear of death follows from the fear of life.”

- Mark Twain.

4.“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 creatures that cannot.”

― Mark Twain, ‘What Is Man?’

5.“Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.”

― Mark Twain.

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

― Mark Twain.

7.“The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it he knows too little.”

― Mark Twain.

8.“A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

― Mark Twain.

9.“Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”

― Mark Twain.

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

― Mark Twain.

11.“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.”

― Mark Twain.

12.“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.

13."Life is short, break the rules. Forgive quickly, kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that makes you smile."

-Mark Twain.

14."Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied."

-Mark Twain.

15.“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”

- Mark Twain.

Mark Twain Inspirational Quotes

Read these ultimate Mark Twain quotes to inspire you to keep hustling for your ambition.

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

- Mark Twain.

17.“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

― Mark Twain.

18."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.

19.“Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.”

― Mark Twain.

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

― Mark Twain.

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

― Mark Twain.

22.“Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.”

― Mark Twain.

23.“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

― Mark Twain.

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

― Mark Twain, ‘The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn’.

25.“Obscurity and a competence—that is the life that is best worth living.”

― Mark Twain, ‘Notebook’.

26.“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”

― Mark Twain.

27.“If you want love and abundance in your life, give it away.”

-Mark Twain.

28.“The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.”

― Mark Twain.

29.“Distance lends enchantment to the view.”

― Mark Twain.

30.“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”

- Mark Twain.

31.“Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”

- Mark Twain.

Mark Twain Quotes About Writing

These are some Mark Twain quotes on writing (from a letter to a book) from the father of American literature himself. Which of these Mark Twain quotes is your favorite?

32.“Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”

― Mark Twain.

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

― Mark Twain.

34.“Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it is the sickening grammar that they use.”

― Mark Twain.

35.“Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.”

― Mark Twain.

36.“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.”

― Mark Twain, ‘Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters From The North American Review’.

37.“I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

― Mark Twain.

38.“I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”

― Mark Twain.

39.“Write what you know.”

― Mark Twain, 'The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer And Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn’.

40.“Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.”

― Mark Twain.

41.“A man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel”

― Mark Twain, ‘Pudd'nhead Wilson And Other Tales’.

Mark Twain Education Quotes

These Mark Twain quotes highlight the importance of information and education.

42.“My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.”

― Mark Twain, ‘Notebook’.

43."In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them."

― Mark Twain.

44.“When I am king they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved.”

― Mark Twain, ‘The Prince And The Pauper’.

45."I was educated once – it took me years to get over it."

-Mark Twain.

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

- Mark Twain.

47.“Classic – a book which people praise and don’t read.”

- Mark Twain.

48.“If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.”

- Mark Twain.

49.“Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.”

― Mark Twain.

50.“A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.”

― Mark Twain.

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

- Mark Twain.

Mark Twain Friendship Quotes

Mark Twain quotes that celebrate friendships.

52.“I take my only exercise acting as a pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercise regularly.”

― Mark Twain.

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

- Mark Twain.

54.“To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.”

― Mark Twain.

55.“It's easy to make friends, but hard to get rid of them.”

― Mark Twain.

56.“It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart: the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.”

― Mark Twain.

57."The trouble is not in dying for a friend, but in finding a friend worth dying for."

― Mark Twain.

58.“When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction.”

― Mark Twain, ‘Who Is Mark Twain?’

59.“But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most, our one fellow and brother who most needed a friend yet had not a single one?”

― Mark Twain.

Mark Twain Travel Quotes

Mark Twain quotes on travel that will get you packing your bags for a vacation.

60."It liberates the vandal to travel–you never saw a bigoted, opinionated, stubborn, narrow-minded, self-conceited, almighty mean man in your life but he had stuck in one place since he was born and thought God made the world and dyspepsia and bile for his especial comfort and satisfaction."

-Mark Twain.

61.“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

― Mark Twain.

62."One must travel, to learn. Every day, now, old Scriptural phrases that never possessed any significance for me before, take to themselves a meaning."

― Mark Twain.

63."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."

― Mark Twain.

64."There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land (and work) again after a cheerful, careless voyage."

― Mark Twain.

65."Travel has no longer any charm for me. I have seen all the foreign countries I want to except heaven & hell & I have only a vague curiosity about one of those."

― Mark Twain.

66.“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

― Mark Twain.

67.“I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.”

― Mark Twain, ‘Tom Sawyer Abroad’.

68." Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

-Mark Twain.

Funny Mark Twain Quotes

Find the most hilarious Mark Twain quotes from the greatest humorist of the century here.

69.“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.”

― Mark Twain.

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

― Mark Twain.

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

― Mark Twain.

72.“Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.”

― Mark Twain.

73.“I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.”

― Mark Twain.

74.“If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.”

― Mark Twain.

75.“I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”

― Mark Twain.

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

― Mark Twain.

77.“Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”

― Mark Twain.

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

- Mark Twain.

79.“God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”

― Mark Twain.

80.“It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt”

― Mark Twain.

81.“Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”

― Mark Twain.

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

― Mark Twain.

Famous Mark Twain Quotes

These Mark Twain quotes are the most famous quotes from the father of American literature.

83.“Comparison is the death of joy.”

― Mark Twain.

84.“The most interesting information come from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.”

― Mark Twain.

85.“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.”

― Mark Twain.

86.“When red-headed people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.”

― Mark Twain.

87."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."

― Mark Twain.

88.“Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the  pleasure of doing it.”

― Mark Twain.

89.“If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.”

― Mark Twain.

90.“There isn't time, so brief is life, for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving, and but an instant, so to speak, for that.”

― Mark Twain.

91.“Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”

― Mark Twain, ‘The Mysterious Stranger And Other Curious Tales’.

92.“It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.”

― Mark Twain.

93."Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it."

-Mark Twain.

94.“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.

95.“It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want—oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”

― Mark Twain.

96.“The lack of money is the root of all evil.”

― Mark Twain.

97.“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.”

― Mark Twain.

98.“A half-truth is the most cowardly of lies.”

― Mark Twain.

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

― Mark Twain.

100."All generalizations are false, including this one.”

-Mark Twain.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Mark Twain quotes, then why not take a look at these Laura Ingalls Wilder quotes or these 'Anne Of Green Gables' quotes to find more great quotes?