Quotes from Mark Twain

A historian who would convey the truth has got to lie. Often he must enlarge the truth by diameters, otherwise his reader would not be able to see it.

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.

If a cat sits on a hot stove, that cat won't sit on a hot stove again. That cat won't sit on a cold stove either. That cat just don't like stoves.

Now, then, that is the tale. Some of it is true.

Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.

In love, you pay as you leave.

Life is short. Forgive quickly, kiss slowly and love truly.

Your friends may love you in private but your enemies will hate you in public.

God pours out love upon all with a lavish hand -- but He reserves vengeance for His very own.

More than once I have been humiliated by my resemblance to God the father; He is always longing for the love of His children and trying to get it on the cheapest and laziest terms He can invent.

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

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

When I was 17, my father was so stupid, I didn't want to be seen with him in public. When I was 24, I was amazed at how much the old man had learned in just 7 years.

You can go to heaven if you want. I'd rather stay in Bermuda.

It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want—oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!

Do something everyday that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.

As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake.

Don't let schooling interfere with your education.

George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.

Adam did not want the apple for the apple's sake; he wanted it because it was forbidden.

Every man is a moon and has a side which he turns toward nobody: you have to slip around behind it if you want to see it.

The longing of my heart is a fairy portrait of myself: I want to be pretty; I want to eliminate facts and fill up the gap with charms.

If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.