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Directory of Mark Twain's maxims, quotations, and various opinions:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

EXPERIENCE

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it--and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove--lid again--and that is well; but she will also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
- Following the Equator, Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar

Experience teaches us only one thing at at time--and hardly that, in my case.
- Letter to Clara Clemens, 2/5/1893

War talk by men who have been in a war is always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon is likely to be dull.
- Life on the Mississippi

The most permanent lessons in morals are those which come, not of booky teaching, but of experience.
- A Tramp Abroad

It is from experiences such as mine that we get our education of life. We string them into jewels or into tinware, as we may choose.
- Mark Twain, a Biography

Sam & Cat on driftwood

Illustration courtesy of
Dave Thomson

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.
- attributed by Reader's Digest, Sept. 1937. This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but until the attribution can be verified, the quote should not be regarded as authentic.

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