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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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Mark Twain
Age: 74 †
Born: 1835
Born: November 30
Died: 1910
Died: April 21
Aphorist
Author
Autobiographer
Humorist
Journalist
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Teacher
Florida
Missouri
Samuel Langhorne Clemens
Samuel L. Clemens
Samuel Clemens
Ceased
Knocking
Seldom
Opportunity
Able
Life

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The election makes me think of a story of a man who was dying. He had only two minutes to live, so he sent for a clergyman and asked him, Where is the best place to go to? He was undecided about it. So the minister told him that each place had its advantages--heaven for climate, and hell for society.
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The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal.
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Golden rule: Made of hard metal so it could stand severe wear, it not being known at that time that butter would answer.
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Broad, wholesome, charitable views .. can not be acquired by vegetating in one's little corner of the earth.
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I am not given to exaggeration, and when I say a thing I mean it.
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We are strange beings, we seem to go free, but we go in chains - chains of training, custom, convention, association, environment - in a word, Circumstance, and against these bonds the strongest of us struggle in vain.
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Nothing helps scenery like bacon and eggs.
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Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
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Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.
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Success is a journey, not a destination. It requires constant effort, vigilance and reevaluation.
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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.
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How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and [how] hard it is to undo that work again!
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Between believing a thing and thinking you KNOW is only a small step and quickly taken.
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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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Sufficient unto the day is one baby. As long as you are in your right mind don't you ever pray for twins. Twins amount to a permanent riot and there ain't any real difference between triplets and a insurrection. - The Babies speech 1879
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It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive.
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The low level which commercial morality has reached in America is deplorable. We have humble God fearing Christian men among us who will stoop to do things for a million dollars that they ought not to be willing to do for less than 2 millions.
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Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.
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Braveness is resistance to concern, mastery of panic - not absense of anxiety.
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Never refuse to do a kindness unless the act would work great injury to yourself, and never refuse to take a drink - under any circumstances.
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