10 quotes explained
American writer and humorist (1835–1910)
– Mark Twain, Letter to George Bainton (1888)
Meaning: Choosing exactly the right word matters a lot. A word that is nearly right is as different from the right one as a small glowing insect is from a powerful flash of lightning.
“I know grammar by ear only, not by note, not by the rules.”
Meaning: Twain says he uses grammar the way some musicians play music: by what sounds right, not by studying the written rules. Many fluent speakers learn grammar this way.
– Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)
Meaning: A joke at the writer's own expense: the French people did not understand him because his French was bad, but he pretends the problem was theirs.
– Often attributed to Mark Twain
Meaning: The hardest part of any task is often the beginning. Once you start, progress becomes much easier.
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.”
– Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)
Meaning: Being brave doesn't mean you feel no fear. It means you fight your fear and control it.
“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.”
– Mark Twain, "The Late Benjamin Franklin" (1870)
Meaning: A joke on the famous advice "Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today". Twain turns it into an excuse to delay things even longer.
– Mark Twain, Following the Equator (1897)
Meaning: A joke definition: a "classic" is a famous book that everyone says is great, but few people actually read.
– Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)
Meaning: When you meet people from other places, it becomes hard to keep unfair ideas about them. Twain jokes that many of his own countrymen badly need that lesson.
– Mark Twain, New York Journal (1897)
Meaning: A newspaper wrongly reported that Twain was dying, so he calmly replied that he was very much alive. The humour comes from describing something completely false as just "an exaggeration". It is usually misquoted as "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”
– Mark Twain, More Maxims of Mark (1927)
Meaning: "Clothes make the man" is an old saying meaning that how you dress affects how people see you. Twain takes it literally: people with no clothes on aren't taken seriously at all.
