Mark Twain Quotes
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What ought to be done to the man who invented the celebrating of anniversaries? Mere killing would be too light.
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A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.
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Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.
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Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.
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An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I've dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half... I never write metropolis for seven cents, because I can get the same money for city. I never write policeman, because I can get the same price for cop.... I never write valetudinarian at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn't do it for fifteen.
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The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive ... but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born.
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A little more kindness, A little less speed, A little more giving, A little less greed, A little more smile, A little less frown, A little less kicking, A man while he's down, A little more "We", A little less "I", A little more laugh, A little less cry, A little more flowers, On the pathway of life, And fewer on graves, At the end of the strife.
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It is my custom to keep on talking until I get the audience cowed.
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No child should be permitted to grow up without exercise for imagination. It enriches life for him. It makes things wonderful and beautiful.
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The truth is a precious commodity. That's why I use it so sparingly.
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Few things are more irritating than when someone who is wrong is also very effective in making his point.
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There are no wild animals until man makes them so.
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Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is, I dunno. If The Eiffel Tower were now to represent the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; and anybody would perceive that the skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno.
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Never knew before what eternity was made for. It is to give some of us a chance to learn German.
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when you recollect something which belonged in an earlier chapter, do not go back, but jam it in where you are . Discursiveness does not hurt an autobiography in the least.
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Why was the human race created? Or at least why wasn't something creditable created in place of it? God had His opportunity. He could have made a reputation. But no, He must commit this grotesque folly - a lark which must have cost Him a regret or two when He came to think it over and observe effects.
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The most permanent lessons in morals are those which come, not of book teaching, but of experience.
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A historian who would convey the truth has got to lie. Often he must enlarge the truth by diameters, otherwise his reader would not be able to see it.
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Strange a God who mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness, then invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none Himself; who frowns upon crimes yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon Himself; and finally with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship Him!
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Time spent with your children is time wisely spent.
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The art of prophecy is very difficult, especially with respect to the future.
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Names are not always what they seem.
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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.
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I think the Cincinnati Enquirer must be edited by children.
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Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people's countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for the universal brotherhood of man - with his mouth.
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The happy phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest of human gifts, and the happy delivery of it another.
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The symbol of the race ought to be a human being carrying an ax, for every human being has one concealed about him somewhere, and is always seeking the opportunity to grind it.
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If you send a damned fool to St. Louis, and you don't tell them he's a damned fool, they'll never find out.
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There are some natures which never grow large enough to speak out and say a bad act is a bad act, until they have inquired into the politics or the nationality of the man who did it.
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If ever you've been down in the dumps, hear these iconic authors share with you more than their writing wisdom.
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