Quotes & Sayings About Humor Mark Twain

I have been scientifically studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so-called,) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result profoundly humiliating to me. For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals; since it now seems plain to me that that theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals. — Mark Twain

A man once said, 'All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.' Mark Twain, you know. He had a fine mustache. Men of wisdom so often do. — Laini Taylor

Humor is tragedy plus time. — Mark Twain

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. — Mark Twain

The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the fellow who can't read a line. — Mark Twain

The older I get, the more clearly I remember things that never happened. — Mark Twain

A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it. — Mark Twain

Bob Hope, like Mark Twain, had a sense of humor that was uniquely American, and like Twain, we'll likely not see another like him. — Dick Van Dyke

English humor is hard to appreciate, though, unless you are trained to it. The English papers, in reporting my speeches, always put 'laughter' in the wrong place. — Mark Twain

He is in heaven now, and happy; or if not there, he bides in hell and is content; for in that place he will find neither abbot nor yet bishop. — Mark Twain

And now the minister prayed. A good, generous prayer it was, and went into details: it pleaded for the church, and the little children of the church; for the other churches of the village; for the village itself; for the county; for the State; for the State officers; for the United States; for the churches of the United States; for Congress; for the President; for the officers of the Government; for poor sailors, tossed by stormy seas; for the oppressed millions groaning under the heel of European monarchies and Oriental despotisms; for such as have the light and the good tidings, and yet have not eyes to see nor ears to hear withal; for the heathen in the far islands of the sea; and closed with a supplication that the words he was about to speak might find grace and favor, and be as seed sown in fertile ground, yielding in time a grateful harvest of good. Amen. — Mark Twain

The source of all humor is not laughter, but sorrow. — Mark Twain

I'm glad I did it, partly because it was worth it, but mostly because I shall never have to do it again — Mark Twain

The first glance at the pillow showed me a repulsive sentinel perched upon each end of it
cockroaches as large as peach leaves
fellows with long, quivering antennae and fiery, malignant eyes. They were grating their teeth like tobacco worms, and appeared to be dissatisfied about something. I had often heard that these reptiles were in the habit of eating off sleeping sailors' toe nails down to the quick, and I would not get in the bunk any more. I lay down on the floor. But a rat came and bothered me, and shortly afterward a procession of cockroaches arrived and camped in my hair. In a few moments the rooster was crowing with uncommon spirit and a party of fleas were throwing double somersaults about my person in the wildest disorder, and taking a bite every time they stuck. I was beginning to feel really annoyed. I got up and put my clothes on and went on deck.
The above is not overdrawn; it is a truthful sketch of inter-island schooner life. — Mark Twain

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do.
Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. — Mark Twain

Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it. — Mark Twain

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
[Mark Twain, a Biography] — Mark Twain

[An example of misattribution:]

If you don't know the source of a quote,
you can always make it sound better by attributing it to me.

- Mark Twain — Jakub Marian

In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards. — Mark Twain

The funniest things are the forbidden. — Mark Twain

Diligence is a good thing, but taking things easy is much more restful. — Mark Twain

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know. — Mark Twain

Death and taxes are the only two certainties in life, as Mark Twain once said. Or was it Benjamin Franklin? — Stephen Leather

Let us be thankful for the fools,' Mark Twain wrote with typically dark humor in 1897. 'But for them the rest of us could not succeed.' Of all the paradoxes of failure in America, surely this is the darkest. Long ago, we saw through old fables of rags to riches; it is still fun to dream, but we know that we are partaking of a cultural myth. But if we do not quite believe in that kind of success, our faith in the myths of failure is unshaken. We are merrily cynical about whether the average tycoon really tugged on those bootstraps, but we still believe with deadly seriousness that the reasons for failure are usually individual-- "in the man." Failure is not the dark side of the American Dream; it is the foundation of it. The American Dream gives each of us the chance to be a born loser. — Scott A. Sandage

This nation is like all the others that have been spewed upon the earth
ready to shout for any cause that will tickle its vanity or fill its pocket. What a hell of a heaven it will be when they get all these hypocrites assembled there!
- Letter to J. H. Twichell, 1/29/1901 — Mark Twain

If there are no cigars in heaven, I shall not go. — Mark Twain

I realize how much [Mark] Twain fabricated things. I like it very much, but it's only half true. And it shows what he was trying to do, which was just entertain. Which he does very successfully, though the humor is almost dated now. — John Gimlette

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it. — Mark Twain

He well knew the futility of trying to contend against witches, so he gave up discouraged. But it occurred to him that he might as well have the marble he had just thrown away, and therefore he went and made a patient search for it. But he could not find it. Now he went back to his treasure-house and carefully placed himself just as he had been standing when he tossed the marble away; then he took another marble from his pocket and tossed it in the same way, saying:
"Brother, go find your brother!"
He watched where it stopped, and went there and looked. But it must have fallen short or gone too far; so he tried twice more. The last repetition was successful. The two marbles lay within a foot of each other. — Mark Twain

At noon I observed a bevy of nude young native women bathing in the sea, and I went and sat down on there clothes to keep them from being stolen. — Mark Twain

I will say this much for the nobility: that, tyrannical, murderous, rapacious and morally rotten as they were, they were deeply and enthusiastically religous. Nothing could divert them from the regular and faithful performace of the pieties enjoined b ythe Church — Mark Twain

Never knew before what eternity was made for. It is to give some of us a chance to learn German. — Mark Twain

And now the tiresome chirping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could locate, began. Next the ghastly ticking of a death-watch in the wall at the bed's head made Tom shudder - it meant that somebody's days were numbered. — Mark Twain

He was endowed with a stupidity which by the least little stretch would go around the globe four times and tie. — Mark Twain

Probably there is an imperceptible touch of something permanent that one feels instinctively to adhere to true humour, whereas wit may be the mere conversational shooting up of "smartness"
a bright feather, to be blown into space the second after it is launched ... Wit seems to be counted a very poor relation to Humour ... Humour is never artificial. — Mark Twain

Humor, to be comprehensible to anybody, must be built upon a foundation with which he is familiar. If he can't see the foundation the superstructure is to him merely a freak
like the Flatiron building without any visible means of support
something that ought to be arrested. — Mark Twain

Eh bien! I no see not that that frog has nothing of better than another. — Mark Twain

Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results. — Narcotics Anonymous

Mark Twain said, "Humor is mankind's greatest blessing." Dorsey Bing said, "I'll take womankind's greatest blessing: more wine. — CeCe Osgood

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

Then there is the tamarind. I thought tamarinds were made to eat, but that was probably not the idea. I ate several, and it seemed to me that they were rather sour that year. They pursed up my lips, till they resembled the stem-end of a tomato, and I had to take my sustenance through a quill for twenty-four hours. They sharpened my teeth till I could have shaved with them, and gave them a "wire edge" that I was afraid would stay; but a citizen said no, it will come off when the enamel does" - which was comforting, at any rate. I found, afterward, that only strangers eat tamarinds - but they only eat them once. — Mark Twain

Even the ugliest person's cellulite is more attractive than the most beautiful supermodel's lower intestine.' I'd put that on a T-shirt but probably Mark Twain already said it. — Jenny Lawson

A good lawyer knows the law; a clever one takes the judge to lunch. — Mark Twain

All great men are dead, and I'm not feeling too well myself — Mark Twain

The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in heaven. — Mark Twain

Humor is the good natured side of a truth. — Mark Twain

I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so tranquil, so filled with a blessed peace, as I did yesterday when I learned that Michael Angelo was dead. — Mark Twain

I once sent a dozen of my friends a telegram saying 'flee at once - all is discovered.' They all left town immediately. — Mark Twain

The choir always tittered and whispered all through service. There was once a church choir that was not ill-bred, but I have forgotten where it was, now. It was a great many years ago, and I can scarcely remember anything about it, but I think it was in some foreign country. — Mark Twain

Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day. — Mark Twain

Nature has no originality
I mean, no large ability in the matter of inventing new things, new ideas, new stage effects. She has a superb and amazing and infinitely varied equipment of old ones, but she never adds to them. She repeats
repeats
repeats
repeats. Examine your memory and your experience; you will find it is true. — Mark Twain

The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are in the right. — Mark Twain

Jimmy Finn was not burned in the calaboose, but died a natural death in a tan vat, of a combination of delirium tremens and spontaneous combustion. When I say natural death, I mean it was a natural death for Jimmy Finn. — Mark Twain

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. — Mark Twain

I do not like an injurious lie, except when it injures somebody else. — Mark Twain

I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself. — Mark Twain

I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened. — Mark Twain

TOM!"
No answer.
"TOM!"
No answer.
"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!"
No answer.
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked THROUGH them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service
she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. — Mark Twain

Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well. — Mark Twain

What is it that strikes a spark of humor from a man? It is the effort to throw off, to fight back the burden of grief that is laid on each one of us. In youth we don't feel it, but as we grow to manhood we find the burden on our shoulders. Humor? It is nature's effort to harmonize conditions. The further the pendulum swings out over woe the further it is bound to swing back over mirth. — Mark Twain

I reverently believe that the maker who made us all makes everything in New England, but the weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices in the weather-clerks factory who experiment and learn how, in New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere if they don't get it. — Mark Twain

There are people who think that honesty is always the best policy. This is a superstition; there are times when the appearance of it is worth six of it. — Mark Twain

No! You mean you're the late CHarlemagne; you must be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least."
"Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has brung these gray hairs and this premature balditude. — Mark Twain

What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey. — Mark Twain

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most? — Mark Twain

LEARN FROM THE MASTERS:
Mark Twain once said, "Show, don't tell." This is an incredibly important lesson for writers to remember; never get such a giant head that you feel entitled to throw around obscure phrases like "Show, don't tell." Thanks for nothing, Mr. Cryptic. — Colin Nissan

The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad. I speak now, of course, in the supposition that the gentle reader has not been abroad, and therefore is not already a consummate ass. If the case be otherwise, I beg his pardon and extend to him the cordial hand of fellowship and call him brother. I shall always delight to meet an ass after my own heart when I have finished my travels. — Mark Twain

The inability to forget is far more devastating than the inability to remember. — Mark Twain

So you see, the quality of humor is not a personal or a national monopoly. It's as free as salvation, and, I am afraid, far more widely distributed. But it has its value, I think. The hard and sordid things of life are too hard and too sordid and too cruel for us to know and touch them year after year without some mitigating influence, some kindly veil to draw over them, from time to time, to blur the craggy outlines, and make the thorns less sharp and the cruelties less malignant. — Mark Twain

There are two kinds of speakers. Those who are nervous and those who are liars. — Mark Twain

Humor must be one of the chief attributes of God. Plants and animals that are distinctly humorous in form and characteristics are God's jokes. — Mark Twain

Today the same thing over. I've got it up the tree again. — Mark Twain

We grant God the possession of all the qualities of mind except the one that keeps the others healthy; that watches over their dignity; that focuses their vision true
humor. — Mark Twain

A sense of humor is the one thing no one will admit to not having. — Mark Twain

The true and lasting genius of humour does not drag you thus to boxes labelled 'pathos,' 'humour,' and show you all the mechanism of the inimitable puppets that are going to perform. How I used to laugh at Simon Tapperwit, and the Wellers, and a host more! But I can't do it now somehow; and time, it seems to me, is the true test of humour. It must be antiseptic. — Mark Twain

Who knows, he may grow up to be President someday, unless they hang him first!
Aunt Polly about Tom Sawyer — Mark Twain

The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. — Mark Twain

In another moment he was flying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Tom was whitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field with a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye. — Mark Twain

When red-headed people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn. — Mark Twain

To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin
That makes calamity of so long life; — Mark Twain

I have seen slower people than I am and more deliberate ... and even quieter, and more listless, and lazier people than I am. But they were dead. — Mark Twain

It smells terrible in here.'
Well, what do you expect? The human body, when confined, produces certain odors which we tend to forget in this age of deodorants and other perversions. Actually, I find the atmosphere of this room rather comforting. Schiller needed the scent of apples rotting in his desk in order to write. I, too, have my needs. You may remember that Mark Twain preferred to lie supinely in bed while composing those rather dated and boring efforts which contemporary scholars try to prove meaningful. Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate. — John Kennedy Toole

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

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. — Mark Twain

An honest politician is an oxymoron. — Mark Twain

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. — Mark Twain

They was strong words but they was said and I let them stay said. — Mark Twain

I do not like work even when someone else is doing it. — Mark Twain

I pity the fellow who has to create a dialect or paraphrase the dictionary to get laughs. I can't spell, but I have never stooped to spell cat with a 'k' to get at your funny bone. I love a drink, but I never encouraged drunkenness by harping on its alleged funny side. — Mark Twain

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever. — Mark Twain

I persuaded him to throw the dirk away; and it was as easy as persuading a child to give up some bright fresh new way of killing itself. — Mark Twain

I've had a very difficult life. Fortunately, most of it didn't happen. — Mark Twain

I never dreamed I would receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, mostly because my style is so typically Austrian. — Tina Fey

We saw also an autograph letter of Lucrezia Borgia, a lady for whom I have always entertained the highest respect, on account of her rare histrionic capabilities, her opulence in solid gold goblets made of gilded wood, her high distinction as an operatic screamer, and the facility with which she could order a sextuple funeral and get the corpses ready for it. — Mark Twain

His hair was short and parted accurately in the middle, and he had all the look of an American person who would be likely to begin his signature with an initial, and spell his middle name out. — Mark Twain

Mark Twain describes how his friend Ralph Keeler introduced him at the start of a lecture: 'I don't know anything about this man. At least I know only two things; one is, he hasn't been in the penitentiary, and the other is (after a pause, and almost sadly), I don't know why. — Mark Twain

Being made merely in the image of God but not otherwise resembling him enough to be mistaken by anybody but a very near sighted person. — Mark Twain

Humor is man's greatest blessing. — Mark Twain

Tolstoy carelessly neglects to include a boat race. — Mark Twain

Nobody had ever even stepped out onto the surface, she read in school, leading to a broken line of memorable first statements. "That's one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind," on Luna, "I wish that the peace I see here could bless the Earth again," from Mars, "This one's for you, Mark Twain," on Halley's Comet. And from the only manned landing on Venus, "Oh my holy fucking shit I think we're on the fucking ground! Get us up we're gonna fucking die! — Ari Bach