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1
A banker is a fellow who lends his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
Mark Twain
Bankers and Banking
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2
A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razor strap. A thin book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.
Mark Twain
Books and Reading
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3
A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
Mark Twain
Books and Reading
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4
A crank is someone with a new idea -- until it catches on.
Mark Twain
Ideas
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5
A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law.
Mark Twain
Crime and Criminals
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6
A good memory and a tongue tied in the middle is a combination which gives immortality to conversation.
Mark Twain
Conversation
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7
A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.
Mark Twain
Habit
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8
A jay hasnt got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; and four times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise.
Mark Twain
Uncategorised
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9
A joke, even if it be a lame one, is nowhere so keenly relished or quickly applauded as in a murder trial.
Mark Twain
Trials
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10
A lie can run around the world six times while the truth is still trying to put on its pants.
Mark Twain
Lies and Lying
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11
A man can seldom -- very, very, seldom -- fight a winning fight against his training; the odds are too heavy.
Mark Twain
Training
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12
A man cannot be made comfortable without his own approval.
Mark Twain
Aid and Assistance
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13
A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be lead by the nose.
Mark Twain
Wisdom
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14
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain
Knowledge
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15
A man's house burns down. The smoking wreckage represents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and pleasant associations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he misses this, then that, then the other thing. And when he casts about for it he finds that it was in that house. Always it is an essential -- there was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It was in that house. It is irrevocably lost. It will be years before the tale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know the magnitude of his disaster.
Mark Twain
Bereavement
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16
A monarch, when good, is entitled to the consideration which we accord to a pirate who keeps Sunday School between crimes; when bad, he is entitled to none at all.
Mark Twain
Royalty
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17
A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words... the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.
Mark Twain
Words
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18
A soiled baby, with a neglected nose, cannot be conscientiously regarded as a thing of beauty.
Mark Twain
Babies
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19
A wise man does not waste so good a commodity as lying for naught.
Mark Twain
Lies and Lying
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20
Accident is the name of the greatest of all inventors.
Mark Twain
Invention and Inventor
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21
Adam was the luckiest man; he had no mother-in-law.
Mark Twain
Family
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22
Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
Mark Twain
Laughter
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23
All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty ornery lot. It's the way they're raised.
Mark Twain
King
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24
All say, How hard it is that we have to die -- a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
Mark Twain
Death and Dying
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25
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure.
Mark Twain
Success
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26
Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
Mark Twain
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27
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
Mark Twain
Right and Rightness
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28
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.
Mark Twain
Words
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29
Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born --a hundred million years --and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together. There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume, when the opportunity comes.
Mark Twain
Death and Dying
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30
Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.
Mark Twain
Materialism
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31
Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.
Mark Twain
Impossibility
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32
As a thinker and planner the ant is the equal of any savage race of men; as a self-educated specialist in several arts she is the superior of any savage race of men; and in one or two high mental qualities she is above the reach of any man, savage or civilized!
Mark Twain
Insect
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33
As to the adjective, when in doubt strike it out.
Mark Twain
Writers and Writing
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34
Barring that natural expression of villainy which we all have, the man looked honest enough.
Mark Twain
Appearance
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35
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
Mark Twain
Health
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36
Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.
Mark Twain
Dress
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37
Be good and you will be lonely.
Mark Twain
Loneliness
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38
Be virtuous and you will be eccentric.
Mark Twain
Virtue
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39
Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon human promises? That is a peculiar condition of society which enables a whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished speculator in lands and mines this remark: -- I wasn't worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two millions of dollars.
Mark Twain
Credit
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40
Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known and I know the rest.
Mark Twain
Knowledge
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41
Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.
Mark Twain
Biography
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42
Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: The one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it.
Mark Twain
Marriage
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43
By common consent of all the nations and all the ages the most valuable thing in this world is the homage of men, whether deserved or undeserved.
Mark Twain
Popularity
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44
By his father he is English, by his mother he is Americanto my mind the blend which makes the perfect man.
Mark Twain
Uncategorised
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45
By law of periodical repetition, everything which has happened once must happen again and again -- and not capriciously, but at regular periods, and each thing in its own period, not another's and each obeying its own law.
Mark Twain
Cycles
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46
By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.
Mark Twain
Adversity
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47
Can it be possible that the painters make John the Baptist a Spaniard in Madrid and an Irishman in Dublin?
Mark Twain
Art, John the Baptist
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48
Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
Mark Twain
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49
Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.
Mark Twain
Civilization
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50
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
Mark Twain
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51
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear -- not absence of fear.
Mark Twain
Courage
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52
Damn the subjunctive. It brings all our writers to shame.
Mark Twain
Grammar
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53
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
Mark Twain
Denial
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54
Do not undervalue the headache. While it is at its sharpest it seems a bad investment; but when relief begins, the unexpired remainder is worth $4 a minute.
Mark Twain
Pain
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55
Do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.
Mark Twain
Duty
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56
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
Mark Twain
World
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57
Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
Mark Twain
Deception
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58
Duties are not performed for duty's 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
Duty
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59
Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.
Mark Twain
Certainty
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60
Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.
Mark Twain
Weather
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61
Everyone is like a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
Mark Twain
Secrets
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62
Evolution is the law of policies: Darwin said it, Socrates endorsed it, Cuvier proved it and established it for all time in his paper on The Survival of the Fittest. These are illustrious names, this is a mighty doctrine: nothing can ever remove it from its firm base, nothing dissolve it, but evolution.
Mark Twain
Evolution
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63
Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.
Mark Twain
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64
Faith is believing what you know ain't so.
Mark Twain
Faith
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65
Familiarity breeds contempt; and children.
Mark Twain
Familiarity
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66
Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.
Mark Twain
Preachers and Preaching
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67
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
Mark Twain
Example
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68
Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.
Mark Twain
Politicians and Politics
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69
Forget and forgive. This is not difficult when properly understood. It means forget inconvenient duties, then forgive yourself for forgetting. By rigid practice and stern determination, it comes easy.
Mark Twain
Forgiveness
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70
Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Mark Twain
Forgiveness
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71
Fortune knocks at every man's door once in a life, but in a good many cases the man is in a neighboring saloon and does not hear her.
Mark Twain
Fortune
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72
France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.
Mark Twain
Nation
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73
From his cradle to his grave a man never does a single thing which has any FIRST AND FOREMOST object but one -- to secure peace of mind, spiritual comfort, for HIMSELF.
Mark Twain
Motives
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74
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
Mark Twain
Fact
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75
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
Mark Twain
Golf
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76
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
Mark Twain
Ancestry
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77
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are.
Mark Twain
Friends and Friendship
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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 it with.
Mark Twain
Friends and Friendship
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79
Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.
Mark Twain
Habit
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80
Happiness ain't a thing in itself --it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant. And so, as soon as the novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it ain't happiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh.
Mark Twain
Happiness
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81
Hardly a man in the world has an opinion upon morals, politics or religion which he got otherwise than through his associations and sympathies. Broadly speaking, there are none but corn-pone opinions. And broadly speaking, Corn-Pone stands for Self-Approval. Self-approval is acquired mainly from the approval of other people. The result is Conformity.
Mark Twain
Opinions
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82
He does not care for flowers. Calls them rubbish, and cannot tell one from another, and thinks it is superior to feel like that.
Mark Twain
Flower
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83
He has been a doctor a year now and has had two patients, no, three, I think -- yes, it was three; I attended their funerals.
Mark Twain
Physician
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84
He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.
Mark Twain
Futility
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85
He liked to like people, therefore people liked him.
Mark Twain
Popularity
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86
Heaven goes by favor; if it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
Mark Twain
Heaven
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87
His money is twice tainted: taint yours and taint mine.
Mark Twain
Money
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88
History is strewn thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill, but a lie, well told, is immortal.
Mark Twain
History and Historians
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89
History may not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.
Mark Twain
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90
Honesty is the best policy -- when there is money in it.
Mark Twain
Honesty
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91
Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.
Mark Twain
Humour
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92
I am a democrat only on principle, not by instinct -- nobody is that. Doubtless some people say they are, but this world is grievously given to lying.
Mark Twain
Democracy
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93
I am admonished in many ways that time is pushing me inexorably along. I am approaching the threshold of age; in 1977 I shall be 142. This is no time to be flitting about the earth. I must cease from the activities proper to youth and begin to take on the dignities and gravities and inertia proper to that season of honorable senility which is on its way.
Mark Twain
Age and Aging
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94
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
Mark Twain
Trials
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95
I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.
Mark Twain
Money
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96
I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey.
Mark Twain
Evolution
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97
I can live for two months on a good compliment.
Mark Twain
Compliments
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98
I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anybody who can tell me what they want.
Mark Twain
Desire
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99
I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious -- except he purposely shut the eyes of his mind and keep them shut by force.
Mark Twain
Religion
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100
I could have become a soldier if I had waited; I knew more about retreating than the man who invented retreating.
Mark Twain
Soldier
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