Mark Twain Quotes on Life

I will start off by saying I don't know a whole lot about Mark Twain. But I do know he's quite famous for many of his quotes! If you're like me you probably know he's a popular author of classic American literature such as "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer." Other than that I do know he has some intriguing and beautiful quotes on life. Some are a bit rash, some are funny quotes, but no doubt they are quite profound. So, here is a nice list I've put together of Mark Twain quotes on life.

Mark Twain Quotes on Life

We recognize that there are no trivial occurrences in life if we get the right focus on them.
Mark Twain's Autobiography

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Only he who has seen better days and lives to see better days again knows their full value.
Mark Twain's Notebook, 1902

If you can't get a compliment any other way, pay yourself one.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear.

Mark Twain Fun Fact: In the twilight years of Twain's life, he served as vice president of the American Anti-imperialist League. The American Anti-imperialist League was a group that fought against the annexation of the Philippines.

Funny Mark Twain Quotes

Have a place for everything and keep the thing somewhere else; this is not advice, it is merely custom.

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

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 occasion.

Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a congressman can.

Sufficient unto the day is one baby. As long as you are in your right mind don't you ever pray for twins. Twins amount to a permanent riot; and there ain't any real difference between triplets and anTwain Baby, Courtesy of Twainquotes insurrection.
Speech from 1879

The business aspects of the Fourth of July is not perfect as it stands. See what it costs us every year with loss of life, the crippling of thousands with its fireworks, and the burning down of property. It is not only sacred to patriotism and universal freedom, but to the surgeon, the undertaker, the insurance offices - and they are working it for all it is worth.
Speech on July 4, 1899

More Mark Twain Quotes on Life

Oh Death where is thy sting! It has none. But life has.
Notebook, 1894

We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove.

Obscurity and a competence. That is the life that is best worth living.
Notebook

Oh, this human life, this earthy life, this weary life! It is so groveling, and so mean; its ambitions are so paltry, its prides so trivial, its vanities so childish; and the glories that it values and applauds lord, how empty!
No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger

...the events of life are mainly small events--they only seem large when we are close to them. By and by they settle down and we see that one doesn't show above another. They are all about one general low altitude, and inconsequential.
Mark Twain's Autobiography


Finally, we will end this post with what might be my favorite famous Mark Twain quote:

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson and the Comedy of the Extraordinary Twins


If you're interested in more quotes about life then check out this Earl Shoaff quote page. It's a great supplement to these Mark Twain quotes for a couple reasons. First, both Earl Shoaff and Mark Twain speak from the perspective of "old truths." Furthermore, they're both big on the basics and keeping things simple. Earl Shoaff uses a little less humor, but he is very profound! Check out Earl Shoaff's quote page here.