Duties are not performed for duties' sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty, the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself.


Mark Twain

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More Mark Twain

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
MARK TWAIN
My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.
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Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.
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It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure tha...
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The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.
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India has 2,000,000 gods and worships them all. In religion, all other countries are paupers; India ...
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Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.
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I never let schooling interfere with my education.
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Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
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Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.
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The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed rig...
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There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress.
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In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.
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Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here firs...
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But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one...
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The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it.
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The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
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Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of ti...
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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.
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The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.
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The lack of money is the root of all evil.
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Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
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Optimist: day dreamer more elegantly spelled.
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Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
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Man was made at the end of the week's work, when God was tired.
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Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
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There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
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Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
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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...
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Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
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The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
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Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
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I make it a rule never to smoke while I'm sleeping.
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The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
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All generalizations are false, including this one.
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'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read.
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The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a ba...
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The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
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Let us endeavor so to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
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I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places.
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Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
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If I owned half of that dog, I would shoot my half.
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What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed ...
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When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. B...
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When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victorymu...
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The teacher reminded us that Romes liberties were not auctioned off in a day, but were bought slowly...
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By his father he is English, by his mother he is Americanto my mind the blend which makes the perfec...
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So I became a newspaperman. I hated to do it but I couldnt find honest employment.
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The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They looked curiously at the costumes...
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We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in itand stop there; lest w...
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The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large mattertis the diff...
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Say the report is exaggerated.
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A jay hasnt got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will ...
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To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman.
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I think I can say, and say with pride, that we have some legislatures that bring higher prices than ...
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A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle; ...they squabble and scold and fight; t...
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Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the st...
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Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born --a hundred mi...
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Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to...
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We never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead -- and not then ...
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Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
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All say, How hard it is that we have to die -- a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people...
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Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find...
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Write without pay until somebody offers to pay you. If nobody offers within three years, sawing wood...
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As to the adjective, when in doubt strike it out.
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I am admonished in many ways that time is pushing me inexorably along. I am approaching the threshol...
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Methuselah lived to be 969 years old . You boys and girls will see more in the next fifty years than...
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The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without burst...
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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.
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All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.
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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 wh...
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To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know because I've done it a thousand ...
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Never have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.
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It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal...
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Man was made at the end of the week's work, when God was tired
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It is a mistake that there is no bath that will cure people's manners, but drowning would help.
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Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to.
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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...
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To succeed in the other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do.
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Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known and I know the rest.
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The church is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not be a bad idea to reform itse...
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Stars are good too. I wish I could get some to put in my hair. But I suppose I never can. You would ...
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There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry.
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The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things tha...
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Optimist: Day-dreamer more elegantly spelled
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Necessity is the mother of "taking chances"
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Distance lends enchantment to the view
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Be good and you will be lonesome.
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Chastity - you can carry it too far
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To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler--and less trouble.
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Most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in it...
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Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.
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When you cannot get a compliment in any other way pay yourself one.
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There is nothing you can say in answer to a compliment. I have been complimented myself a great many...
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Never learn to do anything. If you don't learn, you will always find someone else to do it for you.
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I can't do literary work for the rest of this year because I'm meditating another lawsuit and lookin...
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Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would...
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Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relati...
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Wit and Humor -- if any difference, it is in duration -- lightning and electric light. Same material...
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Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no...
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There is a great deal of human nature in people.
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If man had created man, he would be ashamed of his performance.
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There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.
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The human race was always interesting and we know by its past that it will always continue so, monot...
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Man is a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
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Such is the human race. Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat...
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It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts th...
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Of all the various kinds of sexual intercourse, this has the least to recommend it. As an amusement,...
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Scientists have odious manners, except when you prop up their theory; then you can borrow money of t...
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Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.
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Man is the only creature who has a nasty mind.
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We like a man to come right out and say what he thinks, if we agree with him.
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O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover th...
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A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be lead by the nose.
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Happiness ain't a thing in itself --it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant. And so,...
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There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one: keep from telling their happiness to...
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I repeat, sir, that in whatever position you place a woman she is an ornament to society and a treas...
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Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide i...
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Let us be grateful to Adam, our benefactor. He cut us out of the blessing of idleness and won for us...
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Intellectual work is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward.
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Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.
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I do not like work even when someone else does it.
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Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and play consists of whatever a body is not oblig...
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Often the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.
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Truth is neither alive nor dead; it just aggravates itself all the time.
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No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the presence of ladies.
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We had the sky up there, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss whether th...
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Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True ...
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When you ascend the hill of prosperity, may you not meet a friend.
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Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know.
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Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.
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We need not worry so much about what man descends from; it's what he descends to that shames the hum...
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There's always something about your success that displeases even your best friends.
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I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious -- except he...
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There was never a century nor a country that was short of experts who knew the Deity's mind and were...
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People are much more willing to lend you books than bookcases.
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My books are water; those of the great geniuses are wine -- everybody drinks water.
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A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razor strap. A thin book is useful to stick under a table ...
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When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man's moral constitution and make a te...
MARK TWAIN
In statesmanship get the formalities right, never mind about the moralities.
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Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.
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The lack of money is the root of all evils.
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His money is twice tainted: taint yours and taint mine.
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Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: The one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures...
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All schools, all colleges, have two great functions: to confer, and to conceal, valuable knowledge. ...
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Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. Traini...
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We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only m...
MARK TWAIN
There are many scapegoats for our sins, but the most popular is providence.
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It is by the goodness of God that we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech...
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There isn't a single human characteristic that can be safely labeled as American.
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War talk by men who have been in a war is always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has no...
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There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to go somewhe...
MARK TWAIN
To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character one must judge it by the standards of his...
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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
A wise man does not waste so good a commodity as lying for naught.
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A lie can run around the world six times while the truth is still trying to put on its pants.
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I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, b...
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The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.
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A good memory and a tongue tied in the middle is a combination which gives immortality to conversati...
MARK TWAIN
Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, for democracy is the most expe...
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Satan hasn't a single salaried helper; the Opposition employ a million.
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It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.
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Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear. Except a creature be part cowar...
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Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself
MARK TWAIN
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man aro...
MARK TWAIN
Faith is believing what you know ain't so.
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It was the schoolboy who said, Faith is believing what you know ain't so.
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Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.
MARK TWAIN
There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it ...
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I've never let my school interfere with my education.
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In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in al...
MARK TWAIN
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).
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If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal di...
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A person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was getting knowledge that was always going...
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Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiment...
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Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the leash. That one is the ca...
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If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the r...
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The Bible has noble poetry in it... and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a...
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Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are economical in its...
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The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.
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Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the reall...
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If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.
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′Classic′ - a book which people praise and don't read.
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Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.
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I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
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The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.
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Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Trut...
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Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.
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A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
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All right, then, I'll go to hell.
MARK TWAIN
The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man's.
MARK TWAIN
Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
MARK TWAIN
If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be—a Christian.
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To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.
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Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it ...
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Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
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Education: the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.
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Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
MARK TWAIN
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.
MARK TWAIN