Did Mark Twain say, “20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the things you did do”?

There is a popular phrase on the Internet about regret about missed opportunities, attributed to the American writer. We checked to see if he said something similar.

This statement, citing Twain's authorship, is popular on entertaining And information portals, as well as on websites with selections quotes famous personalities and aphorisms. It is also shared by social media users (Facebook*, Instagram*, "VKontakte", X) and blogging platforms (“Zen", V.C.). Sometimes given extended version of the quote: “In 20 years, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the things you did do. So set sail from the quiet pier. Feel the tailwind in your sail. Move forward, act, open up.”

Mark Twain is rightfully considered one of the wittiest writers, so it is not surprising that his apt phrases are often used even by those who are poorly familiar with his work. For more than a century since the death of the American writer, all his known works have been carefully studied, systematized and digitized. The largest online portals dedicated to Twain's legacy - archive Mark Twain Projects Online, compiled with support from the University of California, Berkeley, base Twain Quotes, which includes texts written by Twain or dedicated to the writer, and an electronic Mark Twain archive, collected by the University of Virginia Library (USA). “Verified” could not find in these databases a parsable statement about disappointment in what was not done.

The popularity of this phrase, both in Russian and in English, is so great that in 2019, experts from the Mark Twain Research Center at Elmira College in New York published article with a refutation of the authorship of the writer. Even earlier, in 2011, project specialists Quote Investigator studied this quote and also could not find any evidence that Twain said or wrote anything similar. They found the earliest instance of a phrase with attribution to a writer being published in an article in the Miami Herald newspaper dated August 9, 1998. However, its author claims that the quote with the statement that these are Twain’s words was sent to him by one of the readers. A year later Peace Corps (an American federal agency that attracts and sends volunteers to help people in developing countries) issued a catchy advertisement in New York newspapers for volunteers - it included this inspiring statement signed with Twain's name. Over the following years, the phrase indicating his authorship spread first across numerous printed publications, and then on the Internet.

According to Quote Investigator, the phrase later attributed to Twain first appeared in Horace Jackson Browne, Jr.'s book "P.S.: I love you", published in 1990. The writer, however, points out that the author of the statement is his mother, and not at all a classic of American literature. Apparently, the quote was remembered by one of the readers of the book, but its original source was forgotten over time. And since Twain is famous for his aphorisms, it is not at all difficult to assume that he could say something similar.

Previously, “Verified” had already refuted the authorship of many other quotes attributed to the American writer. Thus, despite the prevalence of such an attribution, he never warned against arguing with idiots, didn't talk about simplicity quit smoking and did not dispute the importance participation in elections. 

Thus, as with many other popular sayings, Twain has nothing to do with the phrase about people being disappointed because they didn't do something. It was first attributed to him in the late 1990s, almost a century after his death. Researchers of Twain's work agree that he said nothing of the kind.

*Russian authorities consider the company Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, to be an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Cover photo: unattributed, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Incorrect quote attribution

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Center for Mark Twain Studies. The Apocryphal Twain: “The things you didn’t do.”
2. Did Mark Twain say, “It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled”?
3. Is it true that Mark Twain is the author of the phrase about the three types of lies?