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Mark Twain -
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Rise early. It is the early bird that catches the worm. Don't be fooled by this absurd law; I once knew a man who tried it. He got up at sunrise and a horse bit him.
Mark Twain
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Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is a sort of low grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm. Yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the 'noblest work of God.'
Mark Twain
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No photograph ever was good, yet, of anybody - hunger and thirst and utter wretchedness overtake the outlaw who invented it! It transforms into desperadoes the weakest of men; depicts sinless innocence upon the pictured faces of ruffians; gives the wise man the stupid leer of a fool, and the fool an expression of more than earthly wisdom.
Mark Twain
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What a man wants with religion in these breadless times, surpasses my comprehension.
Mark Twain
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The sole impulse which dictates and compels a man's every act: the imperious necessity of securing his own approval, in every emergency and at all costs.... It is our only spur, our whip, our goad, our impelling power; we have no other.
Mark Twain
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Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute.
Mark Twain
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I thoroughly believe that any man who's got anything worthwhile to say will be heard if he only says it often enough.
Mark Twain
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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
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The Autocrat of Russia possesses more power than any other man in the earth; but he cannot stop a sneeze.
Mark Twain
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The higher animals get their teeth without pain or inconvenience. Man gets his through months and months of cruel torture; he will never get a set which can really be depended on 'till a dentist makes him one.
Mark Twain
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Franklin said once in one of his inspired flights of malignity--
Early to bed and early to rise
Make a man healthy and wealth and wise.
As if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise on such terms.
Mark Twain
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If there is one thing that will make a man peculiarly and insufferable self-conceited, it is to have his stomach behave itself, the first day at sea, when nearly all his comrades are seasick.
Mark Twain
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When a humorist ventures upon the grave concerns of life he must do his job better than another man or he works harm to his cause.
Mark Twain
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I have damaged my intellect trying to imagine why a man should want to invent a repeating clock, and how another man could be found to lust after it and buy it. The man who can guess these riddles is far on the way to guess why the human race was invented - which is another riddle which tires me.
Mark Twain
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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
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The lie, as a virtue, a principle, is eternal; the lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend is immortal
Mark Twain
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Sum all the gifts that man is endowed with, and we give our greatest share of admiration to his energy. And today, if I were a heathen, I would rear a statue to Energy and fall down and worship it!
Mark Twain
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A man's first duty is to his own conscience and honor; the party and country come second to that, and never first.
Mark Twain
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No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what a fearful thing it is.
Mark Twain
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An enemy can partly ruin a man, but it takes a good-natured injudicious friend to complete the thing and make it perfect.
Mark Twain
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A man with a hump-backed uncle mustn't make fun of another man's cross-eyed aunt
Mark Twain
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I have seen an entire family lifted out of poverty and into affluence by the simple boon of a broken leg. I have had people come to me on crutches, with tears in their eyes, to bless this beneficient institution. In all my experiences of life, I have seen nothing so seraphic as the look that comes into a freshly mutilated man's face when he feels in his vest pocket with his remaining hand and finds his accident ticket all right.
Mark Twain
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I've come loaded with statistics, for I've noticed that a man can't prove anything without statistics. No man can.
Mark Twain
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The cigar-box which the European calls a 'lift' needs but to be compared with our elevators to be appreciated. The lift stops to reflect between floors. That is all right in a hearse, but not in elevators. The American elevator acts like a man's patent purge-it works.
Mark Twain
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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.
Mark Twain
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Quote of the day
Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.
Robert F. Kennedy
Mark Twain
Creative Commons
Born:
November 30, 1835
Died:
April 21, 1910
(aged 74)
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