The quotations of

Mark Twain

American author and humorist

1835–1910

151 quotes, most often on Comedy, Truth & Lies and Morality. Part of the Writers collection.

What is the difference between a taxidermist & a tax-collector? The taxidermist only takes your skin.
Mark Twain’s Notebook (1935), p. 379
- Comedy
- Government
Biographies are but clothes and buttons of the man — the biography of the man himself cannot be written.
Mark Twain’s Autobiography (1924), Vol. I, p. 2
- Writing
Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world — and never will.
“Consistency” (5 December 1887)
- Freedom
It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
What Is Man? (1906), Ch. 6
- Animals
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.
Mark Twain’s Notebook (1935), p. 413
- Courage
- Patriotism
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 practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory.
“The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg”, ch. III, in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900)
- Talking
The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples — that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at.
“My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It”, in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900)
- Truth & Lies
The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.
Mark Twain’s Notebook (1935)
- Ideas
- Politics
The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it.
How To Tell A Story (1895)
- Humor
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.”
A Horse’s Tale (1907), Acknowledgements
- Comedy
- History
He is a stranger to me, but he is a most remarkable man — and I am the other one. Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known, and I know the rest.
Statement (1906) in Mark Twain in Eruption: Hitherto Unpublished Pages About Men and Events (1940) edited by Bernard DeVoto
- Comedy
- Knowledge
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.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), NoticeIn context
- Comedy
- Writing
You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Chapter IIn context
- Truth & Lies
- Writing
I don’t take no stock in dead people.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Chapter IIn context
- Comedy
- Life & Death
If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain’t sleepy⁠—if you are anywheres where it won’t do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Chapter IIIn context
- Comedy

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