30 Mark Twain Quotes He Actually Wrote — and Six He Definitely Didn't
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) took his pen name from a riverboat call meaning two fathoms of safe water. He was a printer, a Mississippi pilot, a failed silver prospector and a newspaperman before Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn made him the most famous American writer alive. He was also a disastrous investor who lost a fortune on a typesetting machine and paid off his creditors with a world lecture tour in his sixties. He died in 1910, the year Halley's Comet returned, as he had predicted he would.
Photo: A.F. Bradley, New York — Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Mark Twain is quoted more than almost any writer in English and misquoted more than all of them. The Center for Mark Twain Studies keeps a running list of things he never said, and it is longer than most authors' collected works.
So every line below is one you can chase to a source: a published book, a letter, a speech or one of his notebooks. The famous fakes are at the bottom, with their real authors where we know them.
On truth, lies and the trouble in between
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. — *Following the Equator*, 1897
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. — Notebook, 1894
When in doubt, tell the truth. — *Following the Equator*
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. — quoted by Rudyard Kipling, *From Sea to Sea*
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid. — *Following the Equator*
On other people
Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. — Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. — *Following the Equator*
Familiarity breeds contempt — and children. — Notebook
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. — *Pudd'nhead Wilson*
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. — More Maxims of Mark
There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. — Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar
On words and writing
The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — it is the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning. — Letter to George Bainton, 1888
A classic is a book which people praise and don't read. — *Following the Equator*
Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer. — *Mark Twain's Autobiography*
Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish. — Notebook
On character and doing the right thing
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. — 1901
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear. — Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice. — *Following the Equator*
A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. — *Following the Equator*
The lack of money is the root of all evil. — More Maxims of Mark
It is easier to stay out than get out. — Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar
On habit, training and change
Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. — *Pudd'nhead Wilson*
Everything has its limit — iron ore cannot be educated into gold. — What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us
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. — *Pudd'nhead Wilson*
Put all your eggs in the one basket and — watch that basket. — *Pudd'nhead Wilson*
Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. — Facts Concerning the Recent Resignation, 1867
On age, death and laughing at both
The report of my death was an exaggeration. — note to a reporter, 1897
Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. — Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar
Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. — *Following the Equator*
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. — *The Mysterious Stranger*
Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humour itself is not joy but sorrow. — *Following the Equator*
Consider well the proportion of things. It is better to be a young June-bug than an old bird of paradise. — *Pudd'nhead Wilson*
Heaven for climate, hell for company. — speech, 1900s
Six he never said
These are all attributed to Twain constantly. None of them appear anywhere in his published work, letters or notebooks.
- "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." No source in Twain. A similar line appears in the work of Grant Allen decades earlier.
- "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." Traceable to the humourist Josh Billings, not Twain — and popularised by the film *The Big Short*.
- "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." Versions of this circulated long before Twain, including in Jonathan Swift's writing.
- "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did." Written by H. Jackson Brown's mother and printed in his own book.
- "Golf is a good walk spoiled." No evidence Twain ever wrote or said it; the joke predates his supposed use of it.
- "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." Not in any Twain text. The Center for Mark Twain Studies has looked, repeatedly.
There is a reason he attracts fakes. Twain wrote in a voice that sounds like a punchline even when he is being serious, so any sharp one-liner in American English can be made to fit his mouth. When in doubt, look for the book.
What is the most famous Mark Twain quote?
Probably the misquotation "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." What he actually wrote, to a reporter in London in 1897, was shorter: "The report of my death was an exaggeration."
Where do most Mark Twain quotes come from?
A large share come from the epigraphs he wrote for Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar and Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, which head the chapters of Pudd'nhead Wilson and Following the Equator.
How can I check whether a Twain quote is real?
Search the Twain Project's online archive of his letters and works, or the Center for Mark Twain Studies' list of apocryphal quotations. If a line has no book, letter or speech attached to it, treat it as unproven.
Sources
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