Did Twain Say It?

Note: All quotes/conclusions are derived from work by Quote Investigator.


Actually by him:
  1. You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
  2. Never put off till tomorrow, what you can do the day after tomorrow.
  3. The best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer somebody else up.
  4. Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.
  5. A man who doesn't smoke is like a sinking ship with no rats to desert it. (sort of)
  6. A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
  7. It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. (sort of)

He said it, but someone else said something similar earlier:
  1. Make it a point to do something every day that you don't want to do
  2. Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
  3. "She is always kind to her inferiors." "And where does she find them?"
  4. One should never use exclamation points in writing. It is like laughing at your own joke.
  5. I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

There's no good evidence that he said/wrote it:
  1. Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?
  2. Life is just one damned thing after another.
  3. A gold mine is a hole in the ground with a liar standing on top of it.
  4. From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step.
  5. America has only three great cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.
  6. Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we'.
  7. It's better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.
  8. The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work.
  9. Analyzing humor is a bit like dissecting a frog: You learn how it works but you end up with a dead frog.
  10. You'll worry less about what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do.
  11. The plays of Shakespeare were not written by Shakespeare but by another man of the same name.
  12. A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on
  13. I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed.
  14. Don't go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing, it was here first.
  15. To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
  16. Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses.
  17. The covers of this book are too far apart.
  18. History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes
  19. Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.
  20. Kindness is a language which the deaf and the blind can read.
  21. It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.
  22. I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
  23. Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
  24. Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.
  25. There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
  26. Eat a live frog every morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day
  27. Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions.
  28. Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
  29. The person who doesn't read has no advantage over the person who can't read.
  30. It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.
  31. It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times.
  32. Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
  33. College is a place where a professor's lecture notes go straight to the students' lecture notes, without passing through the brains of either.
  34. The climate is what you expect; the weather is what you get.
  35. Whenever I get the urge to exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes away.
  36. When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always 20 years behind the times.
  37. She: What kind of woman do you think I am? He: We've already established that. Now we're just haggling over the price.
  38. I take my only exercise acting as a pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercise regularly.
  39. The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
  40. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
  41. Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
  42. I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
  43. I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.
  44. Figures don't lie, but liars figure.
  45. When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
  46. I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
  47. Golf is a good walk spoiled.
  48. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.
  49. Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.