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Wisdom Quotes by Mark Twain

40 Wisdom quotes by Mark Twain

All Wisdom quotes Mark Twain’s page

When you find yourself on the side of the majority, Twain suggests it may be time to pause and think. He warns that wasting words on lies is a poor use of a precious commodity, and he values seeking truth over guessing. The quotes stress careful reflection, honesty, and the courage to question common opinion.

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Every man is a moon; he has a side no one sees.

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“Human nature is all alike.”

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“Be wise as a serpent and wary as a dove!”

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It is wiser to find out than to suppose.

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If true, rarely beautiful. If beautiful, rarely true.

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“People always more and more foolish, unless they take care to grow wiser and wiser”

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It is a wise child that knows its own father, and an unusual one that unreservedly approves of him.

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It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.

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Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom.

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A wise man does not waste so good a commodity as lying for naught.

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If ever you've been down in the dumps, hear these iconic authors share with you more than their writing wisdom.

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“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”

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Knowledge becomes wisdom only after it has been put to good use.

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Wisdom teaches us that none but birds should go out early, and that not even birds should do it unless they are…

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“I'll not go where there is any of that sort of thing going on, again. It's the sure way, and the only…

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It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and…

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“In making this substitution I had drawn upon the wisdom of a very remote source—the wisdom of my boyhood—for the true statesman…

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Inherently, each one of us has the substance within to achieve whatever our goals and dreams define. What is different for each…

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“Inherently, each one of us has the substance within to achieve whatever our goals and dreams define. What is missing from each…

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And I urge upon you this - which I think is wisdom - if you find you can't make seventy by any…

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The perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy is to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our…

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“The reader must not imagine that he is to find in it wisdom, brilliancy, fertility of invention, ingenuity of construction, excellence of…

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... No photograph ever was good, yet, of anybody - hunger and thirst and utter wretchedness overtake the outlaw who invented it!…

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We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we…

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“So I learned then, that gold in it's native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and that only low-born metals excite the…

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When I was fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have him around. When I got to be…

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The wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not…

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We must annex those people. We can afflict them with our wise and beneficent government. We can introduce the novelty of thieves,…

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The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the life too closely examined may not be lived at all.

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He gossips habitually; he lacks the common wisdom to keep still that deadly enemy of man, his own tongue.

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We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there.

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A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom when he can no longer be led by the nose.

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Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerve give to wisdom.

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What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.

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We chase phantoms half the days of our lives. It is well if we learn wisdom even then, and save the other…

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Adam was not alone in the Garden of Eden, however, and does not deserve all the credit; much is due to Eve,…

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In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through…

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If we read the words and attitudes of the past through the pompous "wisdom" of the considered moral judgments of the present,…

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It is discouraging to try to penetrate a mind like yours. You ought to get it out and dance on it. That…

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By and by when each nation has 20,000 battleships and 5,000,000 soldiers we shall all be safe and the wisdom of statesmanship…

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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.