Mark Twain

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain

Be good and you will be lonely.
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

A lie can run around the world six times while the truth is still trying to put on its pants.
Mark Twain

Keep away from small 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

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

Pity is for living, envy is for dead.
Mark Twain

I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won t.
Mark Twain

The cross of the Legion of Honor has been conferred on me. However, few escape that distinction.
Mark Twain

What do we call love, hate, charity, revenge, humanity, forgiveness? Different results of the master impulse, the necessity of securing one's self-approval.
Mark Twain

It is nobler to be good, and it is nobler to teach others to be good -- and less trouble!
Mark Twain

Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough.
Mark Twain

That's what an army is -- a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.
Mark Twain

If He Tom Sawyer had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do and Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
Mark Twain

Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.
Mark Twain

Stars are good too. I wish I could get some to put in my hair. But I suppose I never can. You would be surprised to find how far off they are, for they do not look it. When they first showed last night I tried to knock some down with a pole, but it didn't reach, which astonished me. Then I tried clods till I was all tired out, but I never got one. I did make some close shots, for I saw the black blot of the clod sail right into thee midst of the golden clusters forty or fifty times, just barely missing them, and if I could've held out a little longer, maybe I could've got one.
Mark Twain

Accident is the name of the greatest of all inventors.
Mark Twain

There is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought --a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!
Mark Twain

There is a great deal of human nature in people.
Mark Twain

It is a time when one's spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death.
Mark Twain

The man who is ostentatious of his modesty is twin to the statue that wears a fig-leaf.
Mark Twain

On with dance, let joy be unconfined, is my motto; whether there's any dance to dance or any joy to unconfined.
Mark Twain

Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it
Mark Twain

There are no people who are quite so vulgar as the over-refined.
Mark Twain

A man can seldom -- very, very, seldom -- fight a winning fight against his training; the odds are too heavy.
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

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

The true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking, or in the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to time the movement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred up and active; the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear in upon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm and solace to eye and soul and sense; but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk.
Mark Twain

Where prejudice exists it always discolors our thoughts
Mark Twain

Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship God, and over these ideals they dispute, but they all worship money.
Mark Twain

Do not undervalue the headache. While it is at its sharpest it seems a bad investment; but when relief begins, the unexpired remainder is worth $4 a minute.
Mark Twain

I did not attend his funeral; but I wrote a nice letter saying I approved of it. [About a politician who had recently died]
Mark Twain

The human race was always interesting and we know by its past that it will always continue so, monotonously.
Mark Twain

All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty ornery lot. It's the way they're raised.
Mark Twain

There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it.
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

The Pause; that impressive silence, that eloquent silence, that geometrically progressive silence which often achieves a desired effect where no combination of words, however so felicitous, could accomplish it.
Mark Twain

Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.
Mark Twain

It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either.
Mark Twain

There was never a throne which did not represent a crime.
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

There are only two forces that can carry light to all the corners of the globe... the sun in the heavens and the Associated Press down here.
Mark Twain

A wise man does not waste so good a commodity as lying for naught.
Mark Twain

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said, I don't know.
Mark Twain

No God and no religion can survive ridicule. No political church, no nobility, no royalty or other fraud, can face ridicule in a fair field, and live.
Mark Twain

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
Mark Twain

There are many scapegoats for our sins, but the most popular is providence.
Mark Twain

If you don't like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes.
Mark Twain

Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.
Mark Twain

As a thinker and planner the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized!
Mark Twain