Twain gets lots of stuff attributed to him—our quiz bowl coach told us to use either Twain or Benjamin Franklin if we ever had to guess at at a "What American said..." question.
According to Snopes, this particular quote has been attributed to Twain but there's no record of him saying those exact words. The closest he came was in his 1906 autobiography:
How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!
any_name_left on November 30th, 2018 at 13:59 UTC »
Because we, as a species, do not like to be wrong so admitting we were fooled is hard..... I wish it wasn't true.
StatisticalAstronaut on November 30th, 2018 at 14:48 UTC »
It's a good quote, but Mark Twain never said it
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-mark-twain-say-its-easier-to-fool-people-than-to-convince-them-that-they-have-been-fooled/
anotherkeebler on November 30th, 2018 at 14:54 UTC »
Twain gets lots of stuff attributed to him—our quiz bowl coach told us to use either Twain or Benjamin Franklin if we ever had to guess at at a "What American said..." question.
According to Snopes, this particular quote has been attributed to Twain but there's no record of him saying those exact words. The closest he came was in his 1906 autobiography: