Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.
– Mark Twain
Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.
– Mark Twain
Life should begin with age and its privileges and accumulations, and end with youth and its capacity to splendidly enjoy such advantages.
– Mark Twain
Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
– Mark Twain
Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
– Mark Twain
Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.
– Mark Twain
Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul.
– Mark Twain
Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
– Mark Twain
Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
– Mark Twain
Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to.
– Mark Twain
Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.
– Mark Twain
Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.
– Mark Twain
Morals are an acquirement - like music, like a foreign language, like piety, poker, paralysis - no man is born with them.
– Mark Twain
My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.
– Mark Twain
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
– Mark Twain
Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name BZJXXLLWCP is pronounced Jackson.
– Mark Twain
Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.
– Mark Twain
Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
– Mark Twain
No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.
– Mark Twain
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.
– Mark Twain
Not until you become a stranger to yourself will you be able to make acquaintance with the Friend.
– Mark Twain
Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
– Mark Twain
October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.
– Mark Twain
Once you've put one of his [Henry James] books down, you simply can't pick it up again.
– Mark Twain
Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, for democracy is the most expensive and nefarious kind of government ever heard of on earth.
– Mark Twain
Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial we.
– Mark Twain
Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.
– Mark Twain
Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
– Mark Twain
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. By Order of the Author.
– Mark Twain
Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.
– Mark Twain
Prosperity is the best protector of principle.
– Mark Twain
Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know.
– Mark Twain
Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.
– Mark Twain
She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.
– Mark Twain
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
– Mark Twain
Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
– 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
Such is the human race, often it seems a pity that Noah... didn't miss the boat.
– Mark Twain
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
– Mark Twain
The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.
– Mark Twain
The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.
– Mark Twain
The educated Southerner has no use for an 'R', except at the beginning of a word.
– Mark Twain
The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity.
– Mark Twain
The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.
– Mark Twain
The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
– 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
The kingly office is entitled to no respect. It was originally procured by the highwayman's methods; it remains a perpetuated crime, can never be anything but the symbol of a crime. It is no more entitled to respect than is the flag of a pirate.
– Mark Twain
The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives.
– Mark Twain
The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
– Mark Twain
The miracle, or the power, that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application, and perseverance under the prompting of a brave, determined spirit.
– Mark Twain
The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one's clothes.
– Mark Twain
The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are right.
– Mark Twain
The Public is merely a multiplied me.
– Mark Twain
The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.
– Mark Twain
The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.
– Mark Twain
The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
– Mark Twain
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.
– Mark Twain
The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.
– Mark Twain
The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.
– Mark Twain
The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized, are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don't dare to assert themselves.
– Mark Twain
The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
– Mark Twain
The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.
– Mark Twain
There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
– Mark Twain
There are many humorous things in the world: among them the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages.
– Mark Twain
There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one - keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.
– Mark Twain
There are people who think that honesty is always the best policy. This is a superstition; there are times when the appearance of it is worth six of it.
– Mark Twain
There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
– Mark Twain
There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.
– Mark Twain
There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.
– Mark Twain
There is an old-time toast which is golden for its beauty. When you ascend the hill of prosperity may you not meet a friend.
– Mark Twain
There is more real pleasure to be gotten out of a malicious act, where your heart is in it, than out of thirty acts of a nobler sort.
– Mark Twain
There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.
– Mark Twain
There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.
– Mark Twain
Therein lies the defect of revenge: it's all in the anticipation; the thing itself is a pain, not a pleasure; at least the pain is the biggest end of it.
– Mark Twain
Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.
– Mark Twain
Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.
– Mark Twain
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
– Mark Twain
To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.
– Mark Twain
Travel has no longer any charm for me. I have seen all the foreign countries I want to except for heaven and hell, and I have only a vague curiosity as concerns one of those.
– Mark Twain
Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so.
– Mark Twain
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
– Mark Twain
Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day, like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.
– Mark Twain
Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
– Mark Twain
We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles.
– Mark Twain
We Americans are the lavishest and showiest and most luxury-loving people on the earth; and at our masthead we fly one true and honest symbol, the gaudiest flag the world has ever seen.
– Mark Twain
We Americans... bear the ark of liberties of the world.
– Mark Twain
We are all alike, on the inside.
– Mark Twain
We are called the nation of inventors. And we are. We could still claim that title and wear its loftiest honors if we had stopped with the first thing we invented, which was human liberty.
– Mark Twain
We consider that any man who can fiddle all through one of those Virginia Reels without losing his grip, may be depended upon in any kind of musical emergency.
– Mark Twain
We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.
– Mark Twain
We have not all had the good fortune to be ladies. We have not all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground.
– Mark Twain
We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter.
– Mark Twain
We never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead - and not then until we have been dead years and years. People ought to start dead and then they would be honest so much earlier.
– Mark Twain
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
– Mark Twain
What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.
– Mark Twain
What is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man's breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked.
– Mark Twain
What ought to be done to the man who invented the celebrating of anniversaries? Mere killing would be too light.
– Mark Twain
What would men be without women? Scarce, sir, mighty scarce.
– Mark Twain
When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.
– Mark Twain
When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know who have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.