Misattributed Mark Twain Quotes

Aging is a matter of mind. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. ~ Anonymous

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that 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. ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company. ~ Benjamin Franklin Wade

There are three types of lies
lies, damn lies, and statistics. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is? ~ Frank Scully

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. ~ Laurence J. Peter

I always take Scotch whiskey at night as a preventive of toothache. I have never had the toothache; and what is more, I never intend to have it. ~ Mark Twain

This quote is often falsely attributed to Mark Twain. ~ Randall Munroe

But we are all insane, anyway. Note the mountain-climbers. ~ Mark Twain

Well I 'low I'll MAKE it my business." "Well why don't you?" "If you say much, I will." "Much - much - MUCH. There now." "Oh, you think you're mighty smart, DON'T you? I could lick you with one hand tied behind me, if I wanted to." "Well why don't you DO it? You SAY you can do it." "Well I WILL, if you fool with me." "Oh yes - I've seen whole families in the same fix." "Smarty! You think you're SOME, now, DON'T you? Oh, what a hat! ~ Mark Twain

In all the ages, three-fourths of the support of the great charities has been conscience money. ~ Mark Twain

You can't pray a lie" Huck Finn ~ Mark Twain

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog. ~ Mark Twain

There are too many stars in some places and not enough in others. ~ Mark Twain

It should know that any strange and much-talked-of event is always followed by imitations, the world being so well supplied with excitable people who only need a little stirring up to make them lose what is left of their heads and do things which they would not have thought of ordinarily. It should know that if a man jump off Brooklyn Bridge another will imitate him; that if a person venture down Niagara Whirlpool in a barrel another will imitate him; that if a Jack the Ripper make notoriety by slaughtering women in dark alleys he will be imitated; that if a man attempt a king's life and the newspapers carry the noise of it around the globe, regicides will crop up all around. ~ Mark Twain

Mark Twain married the daughter of one of New York State's leading Abolitionists, Jervis Langdon, who helped Frederick Douglass who became the great Negro leader to escape from slavery. ~ Hal Holbrook

Out of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most. ~ Mark Twain

Don't live in the past, don't ponder about the future, stay at the PRESENT moment NOW ... always. ~ Mark Twain

Two days overdue, THE WORLD'S WORK has not reached me. Pray make a note of this. I would rather not have to resort to violence. ~ Mark Twain

First catch your Boer, then kick him. ~ Mark Twain

The institution of royalty in any form is an insult to the human race. ~ Mark Twain

I am the entire human race compacted together. I have found that there is no ingredient of the race which I do not possess in either a small way or a large way. ~ Mark Twain

It is not best to use our morals weekdays, it gets them out of repair for Sunday. ~ Mark Twain

The preacher who casts a vote for conscience' sake, runs the risk of starving. ~ Mark Twain

One must keep one's character. Earn a character first if you can, and if you can't, then assume one. ~ Mark Twain

The spirit of Christianity proclaims the brotherhood of the race and the meaning of that strong word has not been left to guesswork, but made tremendously definite - the Christian must forgive his brother man all crimes he can imagine and commit, and all insults he can conceive and utter - forgive these injuries how many times? - seventy times seven - another way of saying there shall be no limit to this forgiveness. That is the spirit and the law of Christianity. ~ Mark Twain

So I hove a brick through his window... ~ Mark Twain

There ought to be a room in every house to swear in. It's dangerous to have to repress an emotion like that. ~ Mark Twain

Faith is believing things you know aint true ~ Mark Twain

The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell together, as quickly as possible. ~ Mark Twain

My mother had a slender, small body, but a large heart-a heart so large that everybody's joys found welcome in it, and hospitable accommodation. ~ Mark Twain

The human being places sexual intercourse above all other joys, but leaves it out of his heaven. ~ Mark Twain

Being rich ain't what it's cracked up to be. It's just worry and worry, and sweat and sweat, and a-wishing you was dead all the time. ~ Mark Twain

Necessity is the mother of taking chances. ~ Mark Twain

The business aspects of the Fourth of July is not perfect as it stands. See what it costs us every year with loss of life, the crippling of thousands with its fireworks, and the burning down of property. It is not only sacred to patriotism and universal freedom, but to the surgeon, the undertaker, the insurance offices - and they are working it for all it is worth. ~ Mark Twain

Heaven is the very last place to come to rest and don't you be afraid to bet on that! ~ Mark Twain

Genius has no youth, but starts with the ripeness of age and old experience. ~ Mark Twain

It is higher and nobler to be kind. ~ Mark Twain

Look at the mother of Washington! She raised a boy that could not tell a lie
could not tell a lie! But he never had any chance. It might have been different if he had belonged to the Washington Newspaper Correspondents' Club ~ Mark Twain

He put his foot on it, and lifted one of the sleeves out with his teeth, and chewed and chewed at it, gradually taking it in, and all the while opening and closing his eyes in a kind of religious ecstasy, as if he had never tasted anything as good as an overcoat before, in his life. ~ Mark Twain

I think we never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead
and not then until we have been dead years and years. People ought to start dead, and then they would be honest so much earlier. ~ Mark Twain

All saints can do miracles, but few of them can keep a hotel. ~ Mark Twain

Mark Twain: 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. ~ Wayne W. Dyer