Mark Twain is, of course, most known for his classic books Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
But he was also one of the sharpest and funniest minds ever that could quickly get to the truth of human nature and the foolishness of everyday life without any sugar coating.
So in today’s post I want to share 110 of the most funny, inspirational and motivational Mark Twain quotes.
I hope you’ll find something here to make you and your friends and family laugh, to motivate you to go after your dreams and to simply give you a jolt of clarity and energy.
Funny Mark Twain Quotes on Stupidity, Life and Politics
“Let us be thankful for the fools. Because of them the rest of us could not succeed.”
“Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”
“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”
“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
“Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.”
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
“If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed.”
“Consider the average intelligence of the common man, then realize 50% are even stupider.”
“A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.”
“I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
“When angry, count to four. When very angry, swear.”
“Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.”
“No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.”
“Why waste your money looking up your family tree? Just go into politics and your opponent will do it for you.”
“If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.”
“All generalizations are false, including this one.”
“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.”
“There is no distinctly American criminal class – except Congress.”
“Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”
“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.”
“Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”
“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
Inspirational Mark Twain Quotes on Life, Travel and Love
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things 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.”
“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”
“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
“Life is short, break the rules. Forgive quickly, kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that makes you smile.”
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”
“Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life.”
“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
“When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.”
“Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.”
“Do not complain about growing old. It is a privilege denied to many.”
“Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
“Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.”
“To get the full value of joy, you must have someone to divide it with.”
“You can’t reason with your heart; it has its own laws and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.”
“Don’t wake up a woman in love. Let her dream so that she does not weep when she returns to her bitter reality.”
“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.”
“Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.”
“Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.”
“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.”
Motivational Mark Twain Quotes and Wisdom for Success
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
“Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.”
“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.”
“To change your life, you need to change your priorities.”
“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”
“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”
“It’s better to be an optimist who is sometimes wrong than a pessimist who is always right.”
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.”
“Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.”
“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”
“The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work.”
“Do something every day that you don’t want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.”
“With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity.”
“To be great, truly great, you have to be the kind of person who makes the others around you great.”
“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.”
“If you want to change the future, you must change what you’re doing in the present.”
“Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of itself.”
“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.”
“Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.”
“A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”
“Success is a journey, not a destination. It requires constant effort, vigilance and reevaluation.”
“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.”
Famous Mark Twain Quotes and Sayings
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
“The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.”
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.”
“How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!”
“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.”
“The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.”
“Loyalty to the nation all the time, loyalty to the government when it deserves it.”
“There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
“The truth has no defense against a fool determined to believe a lie.”
“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”
“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.”
“Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.”
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
“One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.”
“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 a man.”
“Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.”
Short Mark Twain Quotes
“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”
“The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”
“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
“Never miss an opportunity to shut up.”
“Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.”
“Golf is a good walk spoiled.”
“Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.”
“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.”
“Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.”
“The lack of money is the root of all evil.”
“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.”
“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”
“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow just as well.”
“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”
“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”
“Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.”
“The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.”
“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”
“Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you would rather have talked.”
“The trouble is not in dying for a friend, but in finding a friend worth dying for.”
“I can live for two months on a good compliment.”
“If we were meant to talk more than listen, we would have two mouths and one ear.”
Want more Mark Twain and timeless wisdom? Then check out this one with my favorite 9 tips from Mark Twain, this post with the best Dolly Parton quotes and also this one with lots of Marcus Aurelius quotes.