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Quotes by Mark Twain

American writer and humorist1835–1910

Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel Clemens, who wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884 in Britain, 1885 in the United States). The maxims quoted here are the epigraphs he wrote for Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894) and Following the Equator (1897). Many sayings credited to him online are not found anywhere in his writings.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear.
Mark TwainPudd’nhead Wilson, ch. 12 (Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar), 1894
Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.
Mark TwainPudd’nhead Wilson, ch. 15 (Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar), 1894
Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
Mark TwainPudd’nhead Wilson, ch. 5 (Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar), 1894
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.
Mark TwainFollowing the Equator, ch. 15 (Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar), 1897