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Truth Quotes by Mark Twain

119 Truth quotes by Mark Twain

All Truth quotes Mark Twain’s page

Mark Twain reminds us that speaking the truth can be a trick, and that holding tightly to truth helps avoid error. He observes that a well‑told lie can outlive facts, while writers often guard truth as a precious but limited resource. He also jokes that too much truth can make literature feel heavy.

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Humor is the good natured side of a truth.

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If one is honest there is no need to remember.

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…honest men are few when it comes to themselves.

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Figures don't lie, but liars figure.

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None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth.

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Homely truth is unpalatable.

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“Truth is stranger than fiction...”

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Never waste a lie; you never know when you may need it.

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Those who say truth is stranger than fiction have wasted their time on poorly written fiction.

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There have been innumerable Temporary Seekers after the Truth-have you ever heard of a permanent one?

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You want to be very careful about lying; otherwise you are nearly sure to get caught.

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Often the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.

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If you tell the truth, you never have to remember anything

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To avoid being drawn into error, keep a firm grip on the truth.

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“if you say the truth you don't have to remember anything”

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A railroad is like a lie you have to keep building it to make it stand.

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Everybody lies...every day, every hour, awake, asleep, in his dreams, in his joy, in his mourning. If he keeps his tongue still…

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“A Russian imbues his polite things with a heartiness, both of phrase and expression, that compels belief in their sincerity.”

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“The mere knowledge of a fact is pale; but when you come to realize your fact, it takes on color. It is…

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“A historian who would convey the truth must lie. Often he must enlarge the truth by diameters, otherwise his reader would not…

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An injurious lie is an uncommendable thing; and so, also, and in the same degree, is an injurious truth a fact that…

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If the man doesn't believe as we do, we say he is a crank, and that settles it. I mean, it does…

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I don't mind what the opposition say of me so long as they don't tell the truth about me. But when they…

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The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a person only tells them with all his might.

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Truth is more of a stranger than fiction. When in doubt, tell the truth. If you tell the truth, you don't have…

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I have never heard enough classical music to be able to enjoy it; & the simple truth is, I detest it. Not…

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In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who…

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“And yet, by ingenious contrivance, this gilded minority, instead of being in the tail of the procession where it belonged, was marching…

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We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the…

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Look at the mother of Washington! She raised a boy that could not tell a lie--could not tell a lie! But he…

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“We never read the full explanatory surroundings of marvelously exciting things when we have no occasion to suppose that some irresponsible scribbler…

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“You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that…

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“A God who could make good children as easily a bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every…

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“The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world for one object, and one only: to grovel before king…

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“God knows I never had shade nor shadow of a doubt of my petrified and indestructible honesty until now—and now, under the…

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“There is one notable thing about our Christianity: bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing and predatory as it is -- in our country particularly,…

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We are always hearing of people who are around seeking after the Truth. I have never seen a (permanent) specimen. I think…

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an Autobiography is the truest of all books; for while it inevitably consists mainly of extinctions of the truth, shirkings of the…

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To avoid lying, do nothing that needs covering.

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Tell the truth or trump-but get the trick.

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More by Mark Twain

Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.

If you had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you could not have graduated with higher honor than you could…

“The Creator sat upon the throne, thinking. Behind him stretched the illimitable continent of heaven, steeped in a glory of light and color; before…

It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times.

“It is never wrong to do the right thing.”

A man accustomed to American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe, but I think he would gradually…

There is nothing training can't cannot do. Nothing is above its reach.

I never write Metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get…

The higher animals get their teeth without pain or inconvenience. Man gets his through months and months of cruel torture; he will never get…

“As far as I can see, Italy, for fifteen hundred years, has turned all her energies, all her finances, and all her industry to…

Begin with the determination to succeed and the work is half done already.

Many public-school children seem to know only two dates—1492 and 4th of July; and as a rule they don't know what happened on either…

If we could imagine such a man, that is a man who could invent the fly and send him out on his mission and…

You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly…

Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.