Mark Twain Quotes
Quotations and aphorisms by Mark Twain:
Don't let schooling interfere with your education.
~Mark Twain
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How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing, nobody had said it before.
~Mark Twain
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Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.
~Mark Twain
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The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
~Mark Twain
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I make it a rule never to smoke while I'm sleeping.
~Mark Twain
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But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
~Mark Twain
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Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.
~Mark Twain
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It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
~Mark Twain
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'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read.
~Mark Twain
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Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.
~Mark Twain
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Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish.
~Mark Twain
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The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.
~Mark Twain
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I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.
~Mark Twain
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Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
~Mark Twain
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Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
~Mark Twain
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All right, then, I'll go to hell.
~Mark Twain
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Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
~Mark Twain
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Let us endeavor so to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
~Mark Twain
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Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
~Mark Twain
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Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.
~Mark Twain
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I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places.
~Mark Twain
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Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.
~Mark Twain
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A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
~Mark Twain
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To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
~Mark Twain
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Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
~Mark Twain
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I never smoke to excess - that is, I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time.
~Mark Twain
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When in doubt tell the truth.
~Mark Twain
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Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
~Mark Twain
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All generalizations are false, including this one.
~Mark Twain
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What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.
~Mark Twain
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Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times.
~Mark Twain
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All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.
~Mark Twain
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Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.
~Mark Twain
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The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.
~Mark Twain
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I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
~Mark Twain
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The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.
~Mark Twain
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Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
~Mark Twain
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Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.
~Mark Twain
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Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
~Mark Twain
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Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to.
~Mark Twain
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Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
~Mark Twain
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The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.
~Mark Twain
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When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.
~Mark Twain
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It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.
~Mark Twain
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One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
~Mark Twain
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It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
~Mark Twain
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The lack of money is the root of all evil.
~Mark Twain
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I never let schooling interfere with my education.
~Mark Twain
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Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.
~Mark Twain
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Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
~Mark Twain
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Better a broken promise than none at all.
~Mark Twain
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Everything has its limit - iron ore cannot be educated into gold.
~Mark Twain
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It put our energies to sleep and made visionaries of us - dreamers and indolent... It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin life rich - these are wholesome; but to begin it prospectively rich! The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it.
~Mark Twain
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The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it.
~Mark Twain
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I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
~Mark Twain
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Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
~Mark Twain
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A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
~Mark Twain
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The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.
~Mark Twain
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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.
~Mark Twain
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Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
~Mark Twain
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A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.
~Mark Twain
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I can live for two months on a good compliment.
~Mark Twain
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Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.
~Mark Twain
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Man was made at the end of the week's work, when God was tired.
~Mark Twain
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When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
~Mark Twain
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Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
~Mark Twain
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If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.
~Mark Twain
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It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
~Mark Twain
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Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
~Mark Twain
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She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot.
~Mark Twain
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If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.
~Mark Twain
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Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
~Mark Twain
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Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
~Mark Twain
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Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so.
~Mark Twain
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In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.
~Mark Twain
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Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.
~Mark Twain
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Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
~Mark Twain
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The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
~Mark Twain
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Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.
~Mark Twain
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What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.
~Mark Twain
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There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one - keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.
~Mark Twain
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In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
~Mark Twain
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It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
~Mark Twain
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Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
~Mark Twain
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I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any.
~Mark Twain
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Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
~Mark Twain
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Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
~Mark Twain
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Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
~Mark Twain
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Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.
~Mark Twain
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When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old.
~Mark Twain
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Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
~Mark Twain
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What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.
~Mark Twain
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It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.
~Mark Twain
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Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
~Mark Twain
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It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.
~Mark Twain
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Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.
~Mark Twain
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Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
~Mark Twain
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It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
~Mark Twain
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I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.
~Mark Twain
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Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
~Mark Twain
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Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
~Mark Twain
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There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.
~Mark Twain
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It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
~Mark Twain
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A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.
~Mark Twain
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The educated Southerner has no use for an 'r', except at the beginning of a word.
~Mark Twain
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Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.
~Mark Twain
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George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.
~Mark Twain
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Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
~Mark Twain
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Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
~Mark Twain
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The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
~Mark Twain
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Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.
~Mark Twain
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It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
~Mark Twain
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Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.
~Mark Twain
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Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
~Mark Twain
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There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.
~Mark Twain
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Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
~Mark Twain
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The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.
~Mark Twain
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My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.
~Mark Twain
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Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.
~Mark Twain
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A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
~Mark Twain
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It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
~Mark Twain
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Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
~Mark Twain
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Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man's, I mean.
~Mark Twain
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Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
~Mark Twain
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If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
~Mark Twain
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You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
~Mark Twain
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Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
~Mark Twain
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Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.
~Mark Twain
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We Americans... bear the ark of liberties of the world.
~Mark Twain
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We are all alike, on the inside.
~Mark Twain
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Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
~Mark Twain
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It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
~Mark Twain
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Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
~Mark Twain
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Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.
~Mark Twain
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The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
~Mark Twain
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It is easier to stay out than get out.
~Mark Twain
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When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.
~Mark Twain
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Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.
~Mark Twain
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Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.
~Mark Twain
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Golf is a good walk spoiled.
~Mark Twain
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I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'
~Mark Twain
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The Public is merely a multiplied 'me.'
~Mark Twain
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The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
~Mark Twain
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Prosperity is the best protector of principle.
~Mark Twain
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Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.
~Mark Twain
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Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
~Mark Twain
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Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
~Mark Twain
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Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
~Mark Twain
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A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
~Mark Twain
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As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake.
~Mark Twain
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The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
~Mark Twain
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A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.
~Mark Twain
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The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.
~Mark Twain
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When red-haired people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.
~Mark Twain
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When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.
~Mark Twain
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We have the best government that money can buy.
~Mark Twain
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Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
~Mark Twain
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Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
~Mark Twain
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Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
~Mark Twain
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By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.
~Mark Twain
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Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.
~Mark Twain
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There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.
~Mark Twain
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Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
~Mark Twain
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When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.
~Mark Twain
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The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
~Mark Twain
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Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.
~Mark Twain
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The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
~Mark Twain
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It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.
~Mark Twain
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My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.
~Mark Twain
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The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - 'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.
~Mark Twain
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Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
~Mark Twain
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He is now rising from affluence to poverty.
~Mark Twain
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The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
~Mark Twain
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If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.
~Mark Twain
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If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but deteriorate the cat.
~Mark Twain
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The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.
~Mark Twain
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Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.
~Mark Twain
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Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we.'
~Mark Twain
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Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
~Mark Twain
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There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.
~Mark Twain
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It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.
~Mark Twain
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The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.
~Mark Twain
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To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.
~Mark Twain
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Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
~Mark Twain
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The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
~Mark Twain
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In 'Huckleberry Finn,' I have drawn Tom Blankenship exactly as he was. He was ignorant, unwashed, insufficiently fed; but he had as good a heart as ever any boy had.
~Mark Twain
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Optimist: day dreamer more elegantly spelled.
~Mark Twain
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Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
~Mark Twain
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Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.
~Mark Twain
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Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
~Mark Twain
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Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
~Mark Twain
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The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives.
~Mark Twain
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God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
~Mark Twain
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There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
~Mark Twain
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Buy land, they're not making it anymore.
~Mark Twain
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When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.
~Mark Twain
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There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
~Mark Twain
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No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.
~Mark Twain
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All emotion is involuntary when genuine.
~Mark Twain
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There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress.
~Mark Twain
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I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.
~Mark Twain
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I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.
~Mark Twain
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Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
~Mark Twain
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Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.
~Mark Twain
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Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.
~Mark Twain
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The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.
~Mark Twain
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The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.
~Mark Twain
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Familiarity breeds contempt - and children.
~Mark Twain
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I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
~Mark Twain
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Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
~Mark Twain
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