Top 500 Mark Twain Quotes (2025 Update)
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351. “Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered – either by themselves or by others.”

— Mark Twain

352. “The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopt.”

— Mark Twain

353. “America cannot have an empire abroad and a Republic at home.”

— Mark Twain

354. “Never put off until tomorrow what you can avoid altogether. A clean desk is a sign of a cluttered desk drawer. All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”

— Mark Twain

355. “Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.”

— Mark Twain

356. “Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, for democracy is the most expensive and nefarious kind of government ever heard of on earth.”

— Mark Twain

357. “The art of prophecy is very difficult, especially with respect to the future.”

— Mark Twain

358. “A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.”

— Mark Twain

359. “Children and fools always speak the truth.”

— Mark Twain

360. “To one in sympathy with nature, each season, in its turn, seems the loveliest.”

— Mark Twain

361. “When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.”

— Mark Twain

362. “Public opinion is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it is the voice of God.”

— Mark Twain

363. “One of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it.”

— Mark Twain

364. “Honesty: The best of all the lost arts.”

— Mark Twain

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

— Mark Twain

366. “There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practiced in the tricks and delusions of oratory.”

— Mark Twain

367. “Use the right word, not its second cousin.”

— Mark Twain

368. “If horses knew their strength we should not ride anymore.”

— Mark Twain

369. “What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.”

— Mark Twain

370. “Most people can’t bear to sit in church for an hour on Sundays. How are they supposed to live somewhere very similar to it for eternity?”

— Mark Twain

371. “An adventure is something that while it’s happening you wish it wasn’t.”

— Mark Twain

372. “It’s lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.”

— Mark Twain

373. “A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he needs.”

— Mark Twain

374. “If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be – a Christian.”

— Mark Twain

375. “Talent without work is useless, thank God.”

— Mark Twain

376. “We are all alike, on the inside.”

— Mark Twain

377. “Life should begin with age and it’s privileges and accumulations, and end with youth and it’s capacity to splendidly enjoy such advantages.”

— Mark Twain

378. “High and fine literature is wine, and mine is only water; but everybody likes water.”

— Mark Twain

379. “Make your mark in New York and you are a made man.”

— Mark Twain

380. “He had the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.”

— Mark Twain

381. “Our lives, our liberty, and our property are never in greater danger than when Congress is in session.”

— Mark Twain

382. “An American has not seen the United States until he has seen Mardi-Gras in New Orleans.”

— Mark Twain

383. “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.”

— Mark Twain

384. “If it is a Miracle, any sort of evidence will answer, but if it is a Fact, proof is necessary.”

— Mark Twain

385. “Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul.”

— Mark Twain

386. “Architects cannot teach nature anything.”

— Mark Twain

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

— Mark Twain

388. “Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerve give to wisdom.”

— Mark Twain

389. “There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.”

— Mark Twain

390. “Such is professional jealousy; a scientist will never show any kindness for a theory which he did not start himself.”

— Mark Twain

391. “A home without a cat – and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat – may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?”

— Mark Twain

392. “Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.”

— Mark Twain

393. “Memories which someday will become all beautiful when the last annoyance that encumbers them shall have faded out of our minds.”

— Mark Twain

394. “There’s one way to find out if a man is honest: ask him; if he says yes, you know he’s crooked.”

— Mark Twain

395. “There are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer them, or turn them into literature.”

— Mark Twain

396. “Civilization largely consists in hiding human nature. When the barbarian learns to hide it we account him enlightened.”

— Mark Twain

397. “After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.”

— Mark Twain

398. “It is easier to stay out than get out.”

— Mark Twain

399. “Until I came to New Mexico, I never realized how much beauty water adds to a river.”

— Mark Twain

400. “I once sent a dozen of my friends a telegram saying ‘flee at once – all is discovered.’ They all left town immediately.”

— Mark Twain