The Best Mark Twain Quotes on Life, Travel, Politics, Education, Truth and Love

An adventurer and one of the most influential writers of America, Mark Twain is the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 28 other books, and a great number of essays.

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Born Nov. 30, 1835, as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Twain was also a journalist, a humorist, an entrepreneur and a riverboat pilot.

Famous Mark Twain Quotes

Great enough to be read long after his passing, his popularity speaks volume of his talent. Here is a selection of the best quotes from the legend himself.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.

Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

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.

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear.

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,

Mark Twain Sayings About Travel

Here are some the author's quotes about travel, which may just inspire you to travel around the globe!

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime..

There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land (and work) again after a cheerful, careless voyage.

The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad.

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It liberates the vandal to travel––you never saw a bigoted, opinionated, stubborn, narrow-minded, self-conceited, almighty mean man in your life but he had stuck in one place since he was born and thought God made the world and dyspepsia and bile for his especial comfort and satisfaction.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things 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.

I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.

The secret of success is making your vocation your vacation.

They spell it da Vinci and pronounce it da Vinchy. Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.

One must travel, to learn. Every day, now, old Scriptural phrases that never possessed any significance for me before, take to themselves a meaning.

We wish to learn all the curious, outlandish ways of all the different countries, so that we can "show off" and astonish people when we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our untraveled friends with our strange foreign fashions which we can't shake off.

Travel has no longer any charm for me. I have seen all the foreign countries I want to except heaven & hell & I have only a vague curiosity about one of those.

Funny Mark Twain Quotes

Twain was lauded as the “greatest humorist the United States has produced,” and if this doesn’t speak volumes for itself, then we don’t know what will. His humor is second to none, which is evident in his writings. Check some of his funny, all while smiling and basking into the light full of positivity.

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

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

The only very marked difference between the average civilized man and the average savage is that the one is gilded and the other is painted.

Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom.

The funniest things are forbidden.

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

English humor is hard to appreciate, though, unless you are trained to it. The English papers, in reporting my speeches, always put 'laughter' in the wrong place.

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.

I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

God created war so that Americans would learn geography.

What would men be without women? Scarce, sir...mighty scarce.

Mark Twain Sayings About Life

Can you inspire someone through mere words? It might sound easy, but is way harder than it seems. Here are quotes about never giving up on yourself.

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.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

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Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

There is a great deal of human nature in people.

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.

I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

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

Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life.

Mark Twain Quotes About Education

It is not hard to comprehend the importance of education in an individual life. But what makes it even more important is how it can help you stand a league apart from others.

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Here are some hand-picked quotes about education to put more light on the importance of education and to inspire you. Just in case you feel like giving up on education any time soon, or if you are feeling low because of bad grades, Twain has plenty of answers for you!

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).

If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.

It is noble to teach oneself, but still nobler to teach others — and less trouble.

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.

′Classic′ - a book which people praise and don't read.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.

Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.

Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.

I was educated once - it took me years to get over it.

A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.

Mark Twain's Thoughts About Love

Having a bad day? Missing your beloved? Feeling unloved? These emotions are hard to absorb and even more difficult to let go, because they might make you feel empty within.

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Enjoy the following Mark Twain quotes about love, which may put a smile on your face, even if you are not feeling your best today. They can inspire you to move through life with greater confidence, knowing that there is more to life than meeting the approval of others. How much more do we need to say? Enjoy! 

Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.

The trouble is not in dying for a friend, but in finding a friend worth dying for.

The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.

Life is short, Break the Rules. Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably And never regret ANYTHING That makes you smile.

When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.

Love is not a product of reasonings and statistics. It just comes-none knows whence-and cannot explain itself.

If you want love and abundance in your life, give it away.

You can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.

Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.

Don't wake up a woman in love. Let her dream, so that she does not weep when she returns to her bitter reality.

Don't wake up a woman in love. Let her dream, so that she does not weep when she returns to her bitter reality.

Mark Twain Sayings About Truth

What is Truth? The sun rises from the east and sets in the west, is it the truth? From our perspective, perhaps. But it’s important to keep in mind that from another perspective, the sun never rises or sets. It’s the Earth that revolves.

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Here are a few Mark Twain quotes about the concept of Truth. Much of it these quotes are much more than that now - many consider them to belong to the great cannon of common wisdom.

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

The best of all the lost arts is honesty.

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.

A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.

Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.

The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, then success is sure.

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.

All of us contain Music and Truth, but most of us can't get it out.

No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the presence of ladies.

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

Mark Twain's Memorable Words of Advice

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

Never refuse to do a kindness unless the act would work great injury to yourself, and never refuse to take a drink — under any circumstances.

Always obey your parents, when they are present. Most parents think they know more than you do; and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgement.

A person with a new idea is a crank until that idea succeeds.

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

When your watch gets out of order you have a choice of two things to do: throw it in the fire or take it to the watch-tinker. The former is the quickest.

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