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Mark Twain

Writer

Mark Twain was a celebrated American author and humorist known for his sharp wit and keen observations of human nature. His words blend humor with honesty, often revealing deeper truths about society, morality, and life itself. The following quotes capture Twain’s timeless insight, satire, and unmistakable voice.
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The lack of money is the root of all evil.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain't no disgrace.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death, Life
Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
From Notebook
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion--several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven....The higher animals have no religion. And we are told that they are going to be left out in the Hereafter. I wonder why? It seems questionable taste.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.
From The Autobiography of Mark Twain
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English―it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them―then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razorstrap. A thing book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I can last two months on a good compliment.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I lost Susy thirteen years ago; I lost her mother--her incomparable mother!--five and a half years ago; Clara has gone away to live in Europe and now I have lost Jean. How poor I am, who was once so rich! . . . Jean lies yonder, I sit here; we are strangers under our own roof; we kissed hands good-by at this door last night--and it was forever, we never suspecting it. She lies there, and I sit here--writing, busying myself, to keep my heart from breaking. How dazzling the sunshine is flooding the hills around! It is like a mockery. Seventy-four years ago twenty-four days. Seventy-four years old yesterday. Who can estimate my age today?
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
It is strange the way the ignorant and inexperienced so often and so undeservedly succeed when the informed and the experienced fail. All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Success
The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. I would not interfere with any one's religion, either to strengthen it or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one's religion can affect his hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion may be. But it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life--hence it is a valuable possession to him.
From The Autobiography of Mark Twain
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
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.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.
From Pudd'nhead Wilson
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
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.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
From Life on the Mississippi
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
The lack of money is the root of all evil.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain't no disgrace.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death, Life
Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
From Notebook
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion--several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven....The higher animals have no religion. And we are told that they are going to be left out in the Hereafter. I wonder why? It seems questionable taste.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.
From The Autobiography of Mark Twain
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English―it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them―then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razorstrap. A thing book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I can last two months on a good compliment.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I lost Susy thirteen years ago; I lost her mother--her incomparable mother!--five and a half years ago; Clara has gone away to live in Europe and now I have lost Jean. How poor I am, who was once so rich! . . . Jean lies yonder, I sit here; we are strangers under our own roof; we kissed hands good-by at this door last night--and it was forever, we never suspecting it. She lies there, and I sit here--writing, busying myself, to keep my heart from breaking. How dazzling the sunshine is flooding the hills around! It is like a mockery. Seventy-four years ago twenty-four days. Seventy-four years old yesterday. Who can estimate my age today?
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
It is strange the way the ignorant and inexperienced so often and so undeservedly succeed when the informed and the experienced fail. All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Success
The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. I would not interfere with any one's religion, either to strengthen it or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one's religion can affect his hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion may be. But it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life--hence it is a valuable possession to him.
From The Autobiography of Mark Twain
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
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.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.
From Pudd'nhead Wilson
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
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.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
From Life on the Mississippi
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
The lack of money is the root of all evil.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain't no disgrace.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death, Life
Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
From Notebook
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion--several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven....The higher animals have no religion. And we are told that they are going to be left out in the Hereafter. I wonder why? It seems questionable taste.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.
From The Autobiography of Mark Twain
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English―it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them―then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razorstrap. A thing book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I can last two months on a good compliment.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I lost Susy thirteen years ago; I lost her mother--her incomparable mother!--five and a half years ago; Clara has gone away to live in Europe and now I have lost Jean. How poor I am, who was once so rich! . . . Jean lies yonder, I sit here; we are strangers under our own roof; we kissed hands good-by at this door last night--and it was forever, we never suspecting it. She lies there, and I sit here--writing, busying myself, to keep my heart from breaking. How dazzling the sunshine is flooding the hills around! It is like a mockery. Seventy-four years ago twenty-four days. Seventy-four years old yesterday. Who can estimate my age today?
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Death
The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
It is strange the way the ignorant and inexperienced so often and so undeservedly succeed when the informed and the experienced fail. All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Success
The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. I would not interfere with any one's religion, either to strengthen it or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one's religion can affect his hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion may be. But it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life--hence it is a valuable possession to him.
From The Autobiography of Mark Twain
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
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.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.
From Pudd'nhead Wilson
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
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.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Funny
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
From Life on the Mississippi
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Philosophical
Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
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