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The government is merely a servant―merely a temporary servant it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.

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
Order
Servant
Cannot
Decide
Government
Determine
Originate
Right
Merely
Prerogative
Function
Orders
Politics
Patriot
Wrong
Obey
Political
Temporary

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Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.
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I always did hate for anyone to know what my plans or hopes or prospects were—for, if I kept people in ignorance in these matters, no one could be disappointed but myself, if they were not realized.
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While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats.
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A banker is somebody who lends you an umbrella & takes it away as soon as it starts raining.
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There is only one good sex. The female one.
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I am always reading immoral books on the sly, and then selfishly trying to prevent other people from having the same wicked good time.
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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.
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Knowledge becomes wisdom only after it has been put to good use.
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Politicians, old buildings, and prostitutes become respectable with age.
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If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.
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To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is correct.
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To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.
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I can always tell which is the front end of a horse, but beyond that, my art is not above the ordinary.
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That's the difference between governments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do.
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A crowded police docket is the surest of all signs that trade is brisk and money plenty.
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Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it -- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.
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Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.
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We wish to learn all the curious, outlandish ways of all the different countries, so that we can show off and astonish people when we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our untraveled friends with our strange foreign fashions which we can't shake off.
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To create man was a quaint and original idea, but to add the sheep was tautology.
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When I am king they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved.
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