139 Inspirational Quotes from Mark Twain to Transform Your Perspective

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

- Mark Twain

"Character is the architect of achievements."

- Mark Twain

"A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval."

- Mark Twain

"When in doubt, tell the truth."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"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

"Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."

- Mark Twain

"Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

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

- 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

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect)."

- Mark Twain

"The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read."

- Mark Twain

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."

- 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

"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

"Life is short. Break the rules. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. Love Truly. Laugh uncontrollably. Never regret anything that makes you smile."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"Give every day a chance to become the most beautiful day in your life."

- Mark Twain

"Don't wait. The time will never be just right."

- Napoleon Hill

"Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection."

- Mark Twain

"Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you would rather have talked."

- 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."

- Mark Twain

"With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity."

- Keshavan Nair

"Honor is a harder master than law."

- Mark Twain

"Books are the liberated spirits of men."

- Mark Twain

"A full belly is little worth where the mind is starved."

- Mark Twain

"The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds."

- Mark Twain

"Travel is fatal to prejudice."

- Mark Twain

"Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it."

- Mark Twain

"If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."

- Mark Twain

"A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way."

- Mark Twain

"Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often."

- Mark Twain

"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

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

- Mark Twain

"Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't."

- Mark Twain

"The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"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

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

- Mark Twain

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"The most permanent lessons in morals are those which come not of book teaching but of experience."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"It is so unsatisfactory to read a noble passage and have no one you love at hand to share the happiness with you."

- Mark Twain

"If everybody was satisfied with himself there would be no heroes."

- Mark Twain

"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 world owes you nothing. It was here first."

- Mark Twain

"Always obey your parents when they are present."

- Mark Twain

"There is no sadder thing than a young pessimist, except an old optimist."

- Mark Twain

"Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to."

- Mark Twain

"Be good and you will be lonesome."

- Mark Twain

"If books are not good company, where will I find it?"

- Mark Twain

"Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits."

- Mark Twain

"The lack of money is the root of all evil."

- Mark Twain

"Prosperity is the best protector of principle."

- Mark Twain

"All good things arrive unto them that wait and don't die in the meantime."

- Mark Twain

"There is nothing in the world like persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus."

- Mark Twain

"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"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

"Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow."

- Mark Twain

"Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel."

- Mark Twain

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."

- Mark Twain

"Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen."

- Mark Twain

"The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice."

- Mark Twain

"A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"All generalizations are false, including this one."

- Mark Twain

"I can live for two months on a good compliment."

- Mark Twain

"It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know."

- Mark Twain

"But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?"

- Mark Twain

"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. 'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

- Mark Twain

"Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it."

- Mark Twain

"Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else."

- Mark Twain

"Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination."

- Mark Twain

"A successful book is not made of what is in it, but of what is left out of it."

- Mark Twain

"It's a classic… something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read."

- Mark Twain

"My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water."

- Mark Twain

"Do not put off until tomorrow what can be put off till day-after-tomorrow just as well."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"There's one way to find out if a man is honest: ask him; if he says yes, you know he's crooked."

- Mark Twain

"A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory."

- Mark Twain

"Always respect your superiors; if you have any."

- Mark Twain

"May you always keep your youth."

- Mark Twain

"We ought never to do wrong when people are looking."

- Mark Twain

"Do your duty today and repent tomorrow."

- Mark Twain

"Clothes do not merely make the man…clothes are the man."

- Mark Twain

"To eat is human…to digest, divine."

- Mark Twain

"Architects cannot teach nature anything."

- Mark Twain

"I was born modest, but it didn't last."

- Mark Twain

"An uneasy conscience is a hair in the mouth."

- Mark Twain

"There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress."

- Mark Twain

"Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get."

- Mark Twain

"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."

- Mark Twain

"It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"Buy land, they're not making it anymore."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"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

"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."

- Mark Twain

"What would men be without women? Scarce, sir...mighty scarce."

- Mark Twain

"Familiarity breeds contempt —and children."

- Mark Twain

"That desire which is in us all to better other people's condition by having them think as we think."

- Mark Twain

"An author values a compliment even when it comes from a source of doubtful competency."

- Mark Twain

"Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary."

- Mark Twain

"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet."

- Mark Twain

"We have the best government that money can buy."

- Mark Twain

"Golf is a good walk spoiled."

- Mark Twain

"Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education."

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

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

- Mark Twain

"God created war so that Americans would learn geography."

- Mark Twain