Mark Twain
In honor of Mark Twain's 176th birthday Wednesday, we bring you his top 15 most witty and timeless quotes. Buzzfeed

Happy birthday, Mark Twain!

Twain was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, an American author and humorist best known for his novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He grew up in Hannibal, Miss., which would later inspire his most famous works. Twain's wit and clever antics made him a successful writer and public speaker in the late 19th century.

In honor of Twain's 176th birthday Wednesday, we bring you his top 15 most witty and timeless quotes.

15. Name the greatest of all inventors: accident.

14. The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

13. What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.

12. I never let schooling interfere with my education.

11. If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.

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

9. It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

8. Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.

7. Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

6. Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

5. Buy land, they're not making it anymore.

4. Man: a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.

3. My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.

2. Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

1. You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.