“When in doubt, tell the truth.”
Documented source
Every quote here is traced to a documented source. How we verify →
About this line
It opens Chapter II of Following the Equator, Twain’s 1897 account of his lecture tour around the world. He credited it to “Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar,” a second round of the sayings he began in Pudd’nhead Wilson three years before.
Why we carry this line
The closer you stay to the truth, the less you have to worry about remembering the lies. Somebody told me that many moons ago, or some version of it.
Perfect as a daily reminder.
What happened next
Twain wrote this book on the far side of a bankruptcy. In April 1894 he filed, after heavy losses on the Paige typesetting machine and on his own publishing house, Charles L. Webster and Company.
The law no longer required him to repay his creditors. He went anyway. The tour started westward from New York in the summer of 1895 and ended in England in July 1896.
The lectures and this book paid what he owed. By 1898 his creditors had been repaid.
