Mark Twain Quotes & Sayings

“Always acknowledge fault frankly; it will throw those in authority off guard and give you an opportunity to make a choice.”

“But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?”

“Do right, and you will be conspicuous.”

“Buy land, they're not making it anymore.”

“Let us live so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry.”

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience — this is the ideal life.”

“Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”

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

“Some people give their problems swimming lessons instead of drowning them.”

“Be good, and you will be lonesome.”

“Courage is not the lack of fear; it is acting in spite of it.”

“In certain trying, urgent, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.”

“The man who does not read books has no advantage over the one who cannot read them.”

“Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.”

“Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”

“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.”

“There are not enough morally brave men in stock; we are out of moral courage material.”

“There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.”

“In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.”

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

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

“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.”

“When people do not respect us, we are sharply offended. Yet, in his private heart, no man respects himself much.”

“The human race has only one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.”