50 Brilliant Mark Twain Quotes About Life

“The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

MARK TWAIN, Note to London correspondent of the New York Journal [June 1, 1897]

“How empty is theory in the presence of fact!”

MARK TWAIN, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Chapter XLIII (p. 396), Harper & Brothers. 1899

“Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead.”

MARK TWAIN, Following the Equator. Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, 19

“Tell the truth or trump — but get the trick.”

MARK TWAIN, Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894). Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar, ch. 1

“When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.”

MARK TWAIN, Pudd’nhead Wilson. Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar, 10

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

MARK TWAIN, In: Albert Bigelow Paine (ed.), Mark Twain’s Notebook, Chapter XXXIII (p. 374)

“Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.”

MARK TWAIN, “Advice to Youth”, speech to The Saturday Morning Club, Boston, 15 April 1882. Mark Twain Speaking (1976), ed. Paul Fatout, p. 169

“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”

MARK TWAIN, Following the Equator. Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, 27

“For a forgotten fact is news when it comes again.”

MARK TWAIN, Following the Equator (Volume 2), Chapter XXII (p. 259)

“As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.”

MARK TWAIN, Pudd’nhead Wilson. Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar, 11

“Always dress a fact in tights, never in an ulster.”

MARK TWAIN, Life on the Mississippi, Chapter XXXIV (pp. 29^295), Harper & Row, Publishers. 1951

“By the Shadow of Death, but he’s a lightning pilot!”

MARK TWAIN, Life on the Mississippi, 7

“Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.”

MARK TWAIN, Taming the Bicycle (1917)

“Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.”

MARK TWAIN, Pudd’nhead Wilson. Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar, 15

“”Classic.” A book which people praise and don’t read.”

MARK TWAIN, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, Ch. XXV – Following the Equator (1897)

“The stars ain’t so close together as they look to be.”

MARK TWAIN, Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays 1891-1910, Extract from Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven (pp. 829-830), The Library of America. 1992

“Fire is beautiful; some day it will be useful, I think.”

MARK TWAIN, Eve’s Diary, Tuesday (p. 65), Harper & Brothers. 1906

“In all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.”

MARK TWAIN, Christian Science (1907)

“He saw nearly all things as through a glass eye, darkly.”

MARK TWAIN, Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses, 1895

“God’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.”

MARK TWAIN, Mark Twain’s Notebook (1935)

“It is a pity we can’t escape from life when we are young.”

MARK TWAIN, p. 120 – Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 2 (2013)

“It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right.”

MARK TWAIN, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, Ch. III – Following the Equator (1897)

“Some German words are so long that they have a perspective.”

MARK TWAIN, A Tramp Abroad (1880)

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

MARK TWAIN, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar, in Following the Equator, 1897

“A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.”

MARK TWAIN, Quoting a schoolchild in “English as She Is Taught”.

“All saints can do miracles, but few of them can keep a hotel.”

MARK TWAIN, The quotable Mark Twain: his essential aphorisms, witticisms & concise opinions (ed. 1997)

“Put all your eggs in the one basket, and—watch that basket.”

MARK TWAIN, Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894) ch. 15

“We don’t care to eat toadstools that think they are truffles.”

MARK TWAIN, Mississippi Writings (ed. Library of America, 1876) – ISBN: 9780940450073

“We all like to see people sea-sick when we are not ourselves.”

MARK TWAIN, The Innocents Abroad, Or, The New Pilgrims’ Progress (ed. 1870)

“In my experience, previously counted chickens never do hatch.”

MARK TWAIN, Mark Twain’s Letters (ed. 1917)

“Man was made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired.”

MARK TWAIN, The quotable Mark Twain: his essential aphorisms, witticisms & concise opinions (ed. 1997)

“Vote: The only commodity that is peddleable without a license.”

MARK TWAIN, Mark Twain and the Government (ed. 1960)

“Eloquence is the essential thing in a speech, not information.”

MARK TWAIN, The Devil’s Race-track (ed. Univ of California Press, 1980) – ISBN: 9780520037809

“My memory was never loaded with anything but blank cartridges.”

MARK TWAIN, Life on the Mississippi (1874-75)

“Let us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of this scene”

MARK TWAIN, The Writings of Mark Twain: see Old Catalog -. 23. The man that corrupted Hadleyburg and other essays and stories (ed. 1901)

“The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man’s.”

MARK TWAIN, letter to W. D. Howells, 2 April 1899

“Some of us cannot be optimists, but all of us can be bigamists”

MARK TWAIN, Collected tales, sketches, speeches, & essays: 1891-1910 (ed. 1992)

“You ought never to sass old people- unless they sass you first.”

MARK TWAIN, The Choice Humorous Works of Mark Twain [pseud.]. (ed. 1880)

“Civilizations proceed from the heart rather than from the head.”

MARK TWAIN, A pen warmed-up in hell: Mark Twain in protest (ed. Harpercollins, 1979)

“Every time I reform in one direction I go overboard in another.”

MARK TWAIN, Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 2: 1867-1868 (ed. Univ of California Press, 1990) – ISBN: 9780520906075