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In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

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
Men
Cause
Libertarian
Veteran
Liberty
Hated
Remembrance
Causes
Brave
Nationalism
Armistice
Politics
Greatness
Patriot
Scorned
Peace
Succeed
Bravery
Timidity
Political
Beginning
Patriotism
Timid
Change
Cost
Costs
Succeeds
Nothing
Courage
Join
Scarce

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What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth.
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A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.
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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.
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Our lives, our liberty, and our property are never in greater danger than when Congress is in session.
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I admire him, I frankly confess it and when his time is come I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake.
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My axiom is, to succeed in business: avoid my example.
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The rain ...falls upon the just and the unjust alike a thing which would not happen if I were superintending the rain's affairs. No, I would rain softly and sweetly on the just, but if I caught a sample of the unjust outdoors, I would drown him.
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Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail.
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Until I came to New Mexico, I never realized how much beauty water adds to a river.
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Stars and shadows ain't good to see by.
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Most people can't bear to sit in church for an hour on Sundays. How are they supposed to live somewhere very similar to it for eternity?
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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.
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All war must be just the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it.
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Change is the handmaiden Nature requires to do her miracles with.
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The truth hurts, but silence kills.
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If we should deal out justice only, in this world, who would escape? No, it is better to be generous, and in the end more profitable, for it gains gratitude for us, and love.
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Out of the depths of my happy heart wells a great tide of love and prayer for this priceless treasure that is confided to my lifelong keeping. You cannot see its waves as they flow toward you, darling, but in these lines you will hear...the distant beating of its surf.
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I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.
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Why is it that, among men, physical courage is a trait so plenteous yet moral courage is a trait so rare?
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If we would learn what the human race really is at bottom, we need only observe it in election times.
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