Mark Twain Quotes

“There is nothing like instances to grow hair on a bald-headed argument.”

“A great, great deal has been said about the weather, but very little has ever been done.”

“If you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.”

“I am not an economist. I am an honest man!”

“It were not best that we should all think alike.”

“It has been reported that I was seriously ill--it was another man; dying--it was another man; dead--the other man again...As far as I can see, nothing remains to be reported, except that I have become a foreigner. When you hear it, don't you believe it. And don't take the trouble to deny it. Merely just raise the American flag on our house in Hartford and let it talk.”

“In India, 'cold weather' is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy.”

“A joke, even if it be a lame one, is nowhere so keenly relished or quickly applauded as in a murder trial.”

“Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions....there was never a country where the majority of the people were in their secret hearts loyal to any of these institutions.”

“Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.”

“I could never learn to like her, except on a raft at sea with no other provisions in sight.”

“I am content to be a bric-a-bracker and a Ceramiker.”

“The lie, as a virtue, a principle, is eternal; the lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend is immortal”

“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.”

“Genius, like gold and precious stones,is chiefly prized because of its rarity.”

“He charged nothing for his preaching and it was worth it too.”

“There is no urge so great as for one man to edit another man's work.”

“Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.”

“More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the [biblical] texts that authorised them remain.”

“The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

“Hotels are the only proper places for lecturers. When I am ill-natured I so enjoy the freedom of a hotel where I can ring up a domestic and give him a quarter and then break furniture over him.”

“In statesmanship get formalities right, never mind about the moralities.”

“Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.”

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

“Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. Fanatics will never learn that, though it be written in letters of gold across the sky. It is the prohibition that makes anything precious.”