Top 500 Mark Twain Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.”

— Mark Twain

202. “When everyone is looking for gold, it’s a good time to be in the pick and shovel business.”

— Mark Twain

203. “Quitting smoking is easy, I’ve done it hundreds of times.”

— Mark Twain

204. “I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.”

— Mark Twain

205. “A clean desk is a sign of a cluttered desk drawer.”

— Mark Twain

206. “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

207. “Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.”

— Mark Twain

208. “Tough times teach trust.”

— Mark Twain

209. “Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. To live a fulfilled life, we need to keep creating the “what is next”, of our lives. Without dreams and goals there is no living, only merely existing, and that is not why we are here.”

— Mark Twain

210. “Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.”

— Mark Twain

211. “In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.”

— Mark Twain

212. “Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners.”

— Mark Twain

213. “Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.”

— Mark Twain

214. “While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats.”

— Mark Twain

215. “The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.”

— Mark Twain

216. “The secret of success is making your vocation your vacation.”

— Mark Twain

217. “Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.”

— Mark Twain

218. “There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.”

— Mark Twain

219. “The secret to success: find out where people are going and get there first.”

— Mark Twain

220. “Don’t use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.”

— Mark Twain

221. “I’m glad I did it, partly because it was worth it, but mostly because I shall never have to do it again.”

— Mark Twain

222. “When in doubt tell the truth. It will confound your enemies and astound your friends.”

— Mark Twain

223. “Familiarity breeds contempt. How accurate that is. The reason we hold truth in such respect is because we have so little opportunity to get familiar with it.”

— Mark Twain

224. “It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want – oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”

— Mark Twain

225. “Life is short. Forgive quickly, kiss slowly and love truly.”

— Mark Twain

226. “Sacred cows make the best hamburger.”

— Mark Twain

227. “To be busy is man’s only happiness.”

— Mark Twain

228. “Necessity is the mother of taking chances.”

— Mark Twain

229. “The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow.”

— Mark Twain

230. “She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.”

— Mark Twain

231. “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.”

— Mark Twain

232. “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”

— Mark Twain

233. “Forgiveness is the smell that lavender gives out when you tread on it.”

— Mark Twain

234. “The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible.”

— Mark Twain

235. “The only certainties in life are death and taxes.”

— Mark Twain

236. “I was born with Halley’s Comet and I expect to die upon its return.”

— Mark Twain

237. “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

238. “If everyone was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.”

— Mark Twain

239. “A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.”

— Mark Twain

240. “Whatever you say, say it with conviction.”

— Mark Twain

241. “Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”

— Mark Twain

242. “Too bad that youth is wasted on the young.”

— Mark Twain

243. “Make your vocation your vacation. That is the secret to success.”

— Mark Twain

244. “It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”

— Mark Twain

245. “My father was an amazing man. The older I got, the smarter he got.”

— Mark Twain

246. “When congress is in session no American is safe.”

— Mark Twain

247. “You can’t break a bad habit by throwing it out the window. You’ve got to walk it slowly down the stairs.”

— Mark Twain

248. “Temper is what gets most of us into trouble. Pride is what keeps us there.”

— Mark Twain

249. “The first half of my life I went to school, the second half of my life I got an education.”

— Mark Twain

250. “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”

— Mark Twain