Mark Twain Truth Quotations

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.

Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.

It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

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

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so.

Many when they come to die have spent all the truth that was in them, and enter the next world as paupers. I have saved up enough to make an astonishment there.

A lie can run around the world six times while the truth is still trying to put on its pants.

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes

I never could tell a lie that anybody would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.

Never tell the truth to those unworthy of it....

Look at the mother of Washington! She raised a boy that could not tell a lie--could not tell a lie! But he never had any chance. It might have been different if he had belonged to the Washington Newspaper Correspondents' Club

Those who say truth is stranger than fiction have wasted their time on poorly written fiction.

The truth hurts, but silence kills.

All of us contain Music & Truth, but most of us can't get it out.

A half-truth is the most cowardly of lies.

When in doubt, tell the truth. That maxim I did invent, but never expected it to be applied to me. I did say, "When you are in doubt," but when I am in doubt myself I use more sagacity.

The history of our race, and each individual’s experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.

When in doubt tell the truth. It will confound your enemies and astound your friends.

None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth.

Always tell the truth. That way you don't have to remember what you said.

In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.

The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't.

Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.

An injurious truth has no merit over an injurious lie. Neither should ever be uttered. The man who speaks an injurious truth, lest his soul be not saved if he do otherwise, should reflect that that sort of a soul is not strictly worth saving.

When in doubt tell the truth.

Homely truth is unpalatable.

If you tell the truth you do not need a good memory!

No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the presence of ladies.

Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.

There have been innumerable Temporary Seekers after the Truth-have you ever heard of a permanent one?

Often the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.

Truth is neither alive nor dead; it just aggravates itself all the time....

Truth is such a precious article - let us all economize in its use.

All generalizations are false, including this one.

I have not professionally dealt in truth. Many when they come to die have spent all the truth that was in them, and enter the next world as paupers. I have saved up enough to make an astonishment there.

Familiarity breeds contempt. How accurate that is. The reason we hold truth in such respect is because we have so little opportunity to get familiar with it.

We are always hearing of people who are around seeking after the Truth. I have never seen a (permanent) specimen. I think he has never lived. But I have seen several entirely sincere people who thought they were (permanent) Seekers after the Truth. They sought diligently, persistently, carefully, cautiously, profoundly, with perfect honesty and nicely adjusted judgment- until they believed that without doubt or question they had found the Truth. That was the end of the search. The man spent the rest of his hunting up shingles wherewith to protect his Truth from the weather.

I don't mind what the opposition say of me so long as they don't tell the truth about me. But when they descend to telling the truth about me I consider that this is taking an unfair advantage.

Truth is stranger than fiction-to some people, but I am measurably familiar with it.

My own luck has been curious all my literary life; I never could tell a lie that anyone would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.

It is not worth while to strain one's self to tell the truth to people who habitually discount everything you tell them, whether it is true or isn't.

Tell the truth or trump-but get the trick.

But it was ever thus, all through my life: whenever I have diverged from custom and principle and uttered a truth, the rule has been that the hearer hadn't strength of mind enough to believe it.

I like the truth sometimes, but I don't care enough for it to hanker after it.

The truth is a precious commodity. That's why I use it so sparingly.