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Quotations by Mark Twain

Disappointment by things you didn't do - 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 safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover.

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

In the way of education - I have never let my schooling get in the way of my education.

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

If animals could speak - If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.

Of all God's creatures - Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.

Humor is the great thing - Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments flit away and a sunny spirit takes their place.

Always do right - Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.

Always acknowledge a fault frankly - Always acknowledge a fault frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you opportunity to commit more.

Geniuses live and die undiscovered - Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.

The humorous story is told gravely - The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it.

I have no special regard for Satan - I have no special regard for Satan; but, I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English, it is un-American; it is French.

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

Keep away from people who belittle - 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.

Anger is an acid - 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.

If you pick up a starving dog - 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.

Loyalty to one's country - My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders.

Age is mind over matter - Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Man is the only animal that is cruel - 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.

Pessimism and optimism at 48 - The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

The change of an ignorant father - When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.

To get into Congress - The chances are that a man cannot get into congress now without resorting to arts and means that should render him unfit to go there.

Patriotism commemorates robbery - Talking of patriotism what humbug it is; it is a word which always commemorates a robbery. There isn't a foot of land in the world which doesn't represent the ousting and re-ousting of a long line of successive "owners," who each in turn, as "patriots," with proud swelling hearts defended it against the next gang of "robbers" who came to steal it and did -- and became swelling-hearted patriots in their turn.

Extract only wisdom from an experience - 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 any more.

Fear of annihilation - Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born -- a hundred million years -- and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together. There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume, when the opportunity comes.

Interest in the Bible - [the bible] . . . is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.

Man was made vicious - God made man, without man's consent, and made his nature, too; made it vicious instead of angelic, and then said, Be angelic, or I will punish you and destroy you. But no matter, God is responsible for everything man does, all the same; He can't get around that fact. There is only one Criminal, and it is not man.

Second-hand belief systems - In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination.

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