Did Twain Say It?
Note: All quotes/conclusions are derived from work by Quote Investigator.
Actually by him:
- You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
- Never put off till tomorrow, what you can do the day after tomorrow.
- The best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer somebody else up.
- Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.
- A man who doesn't smoke is like a sinking ship with no rats to desert it. (sort of)
- 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.
- 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:
- Make it a point to do something every day that you don't want to do
- Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
- "She is always kind to her inferiors." "And where does she find them?"
- One should never use exclamation points in writing. It is like laughing at your own joke.
- I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
There's no good evidence that he said/wrote it:
- Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?
- Life is just one damned thing after another.
- A gold mine is a hole in the ground with a liar standing on top of it.
- From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step.
- America has only three great cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.
- Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we'.
- It's better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.
- The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work.
- Analyzing humor is a bit like dissecting a frog: You learn how it works but you end up with a dead frog.
- You'll worry less about what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do.
- The plays of Shakespeare were not written by Shakespeare but by another man of the same name.
- A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on
- I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed.
- Don't go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing, it was here first.
- To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
- Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses.
- The covers of this book are too far apart.
- History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes
- Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.
- Kindness is a language which the deaf and the blind can read.
- It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.
- I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
- Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
- Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.
- There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
- Eat a live frog every morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day
- Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions.
- Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
- The person who doesn't read has no advantage over the person who can't read.
- 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.
- It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times.
- 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.
- College is a place where a professor's lecture notes go straight to the students' lecture notes, without passing through the brains of either.
- The climate is what you expect; the weather is what you get.
- Whenever I get the urge to exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes away.
- When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always 20 years behind the times.
- She: What kind of woman do you think I am? He: We've already established that. Now we're just haggling over the price.
- I take my only exercise acting as a pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercise regularly.
- The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
- Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
- Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
- I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
- I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.
- Figures don't lie, but liars figure.
- 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.
- I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
- Golf is a good walk spoiled.
- Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.
- Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.