Mark Twain's quote

You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like there's nobody listening, And live like it's heaven on earth.

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 the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

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

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.

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

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

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company.

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

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

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

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.

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

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.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.

Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

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

God created war so that Americans would learn geography.

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

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

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

If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.

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.

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

I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.

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

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

The secret to getting ahead is getting started.

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.

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

I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.

When angry, count four. When very angry, swear.

Out of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most.

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

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

The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.

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

Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.

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

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

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

I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't.

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.

Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times.

If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be—a Christian.

Write without pay until somebody offers to pay.

I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anybody who can tell me what they want.

A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.

Distance lends enchantment to the view.

great people are those who make others feel that they, too, can become great.

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.

April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four. Pudd'nhead Wilson and Other Tales

Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.

I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

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

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.

Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.

Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.

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

Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.

The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.

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

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

You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?

Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.

Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates. Life on the Mississippi

Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat. Christian Science

Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.

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

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

Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.

Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

The government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.

Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it is the sickening grammar that they use.

Unconsciously we all have a standard by which we measure other men, and if we examine closely we find that this standard is a very simple one, and is this: we admire them, we envy them, for great qualities we ourselves lack. Hero worship consists in just that. Our heroes are men who do things which we recognize, with regret, and sometimes with a secret shame, that we cannot do. We find not much in ourselves to admire, we are always privately wanting to be like somebody else. If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.

Be good and you will be lonesome. Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World

We may not pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents.

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.

I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.

Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it.

The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.

It is by the goodness of god that in our country we have those 3 unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

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

A half-truth is the most cowardly of lies.

Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts or happenings. It consist mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever flowing through one's head.

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.

The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.

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

Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.

Worrying is like paying a debt you don't owe.

Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are economical in its use.

Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

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. The Diaries of Adam & Eve

Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned. Notebook

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages. Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World

There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

[The Bible] has noble poetry in it... and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies.

Obscurity and a competence—that is the life that is best worth living. Notebook

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightening that does the work.

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

There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. Pudd'nhead Wilson

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be—a Christian. Notebook

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

Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately. Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh--not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court. Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings

In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards. Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World

Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.

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

My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water. Notebook

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.

The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man's.

It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart: the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.

All right, then, I'll go to hell. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

He had had much experience of physicians, and said 'the only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd druther not'. Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World

Wheresoever she was, there was Eden. The Diary of Adam and Eve

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

If we would learn what the human race really is at bottom, we need only observe it in election times.

The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive ... but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born.

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.

Human pride is not worthwhile; there is always something lying in wait to take the wind out of it.

A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.

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

She remained both girl and woman to the last day of her life. Under a grave and gentle exterior burned inextinguishable fires of sympathy, energy, devotion, enthusiasm, and absolutely limitless affection.

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog.

The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in heaven.

If books are not good company, where shall I find it?

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.

Let us not be too particular. It is better to have old second-hand diamonds than none at all.

It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt

Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.

Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge.

All I care to know about a man is that he is a human being... he can't be any worse.

Jim said that bees won't sting idiots, but I didn't believe that, because I tried them lots of times myself and they wouldn't sting me. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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

Just when I thought I was learning how to live, 'twas then I realized I was learning how to die.

The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn't indicate or promise, and which the other kind of eye couldn't detect. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc

It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it's the parts that I do understand.

It's not what you don't know that kills you, it's what you know for sure that ain't true.

Never be haughty to the humble, never be humble to the haughty.

I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR per G.G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCE The Adventures of Huck Finn

Familiarity breeds contempt and children.

Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.

Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.

The older I get, the more clearly I remember things that never happened.

It usually takes me two or three days to prepare an impromptu speech.

Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any. The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain: A Book of Quotations

Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.

I take my only exercise acting as a pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercise regularly.

It's easy to make friends, but hard to get rid of them.

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.

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. The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It

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

Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent. Pudd'nhead Wilson

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.

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

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.

The most interesting information come from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.

Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.

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

History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

I must have a prodigious amount of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up!

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

When I am king they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved. The Prince and the Pauper

Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over.

Many public-school children seem to know only two dates—1492 and 4th of July; and as a rule they don't know what happened on either occasion.

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.

Write what you know. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer/Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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

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. Tom Sawyer Abroad

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

The lack of money is the root of all evil.

No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.

A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo and doesn't.

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.

He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

It is easier to stay out than to get out.

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

A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows.

Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessaries.

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

for business reasons, I must preserve the outward signs of sanity.

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

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it he knows too little.

Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.

Always do right - this will gratify some and astonish the rest.

When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you' re getting old.