Mark Twain Quotes That Will Inspire You to Live Your Best Life

1. 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.

2. A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razorstrap. A thing book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.

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

4. A God who could make good children as easily a bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave is angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell--mouths mercy, and invented hell--mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him! The Mysterious Stranger

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

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

7. A proof once established is better left so. The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg

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

9. 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

10. 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. Diaries of Adam & Eve

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

12. 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

13. Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any. The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain

14. Be wise as a serpent and wary as a dove!

15. Behold, the fool saith, "Put not all thine eggs in the one basket" - which is but a matter of saying, "Scatter your money and your attention"; but the wise man saith, "Pull all your eggs in the one basket and - WATCH THAT BASKET." - Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar Pudd'nhead Wilson

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

17. Familiarity breeds contempt and children.

18. Herodotus says, "Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all: the conscientious historian will correct these defects.

19. Human nature is all alike. Autobiography of Volume 1: The Complete and Authoritative Edition

20. Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.

21. I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

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

23. 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

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

25. I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write Englishit is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of themthen the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.

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

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

28. I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I’m not feeling so well myself. Speeches

29. I'll not go where there is any of that sort of thing going on, again. It's the sure way, and the only sure way; Pudd'nhead Wilson

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