Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

It first appears in H. Jackson Brown Jr.’s P.S. I Love You (Rutledge Hill Press, 1990), p. 13, a small book of sayings he credited to his mother, Sarah Frances Brown; the first sentence is followed there by the sailing lines. No earlier occurrence is known, so whether she coined it or passed it on cannot be settled. Quote Investigator found the first attribution to Twain in an advertisement in The New Yorker of 20 April 1998 (‘attributed to Mark Twain’), followed by newspaper columns later that year.

One of the most shared ‘Mark Twain’ quotes, on travel sites, graduation cards and posters. Not in any of the fifteen Twain texts in the sources, and nothing like it has been found in his letters or notebooks: TwainQuotes says ‘the attribution cannot be verified’ and it ‘should not be regarded as authentic’.

Regret for what we never tried lasts longer than regret for our mistakes, so take risks while you can.

• ShortenedTwenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. The first sentence alone.
• The form on posters and social mediaExplore. Dream. Discover. The last three words, on posters and tattoos, still credited to Twain.

Life, Time, Change, Courage, Wisdom

• Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. (misattributed) Ralph Waldo Emerson
• You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. Dr. Seuss
• Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Stones in my path? I keep them all. One day I will build a castle. (misattributed) Fernando Pessoa
• You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. (misattributed) C. S. Lewis

• quoteinvestigator.com/2011/09/29/you-did
• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Twain

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Attributed to Mark Twain. No. It is first printed in H. Jackson Brown Jr.’s P.S. I Love You (1990), a book of sayings he credited to his mother; whether she coined it is not known. It is not Twain’s. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/twenty-years-from-now/ (checked 21 October 2026).

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