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We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.

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
Distinguished
Fifteen
Anxious
Possess
Musical
Praise
Talent
Always
Praised

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And so I am become a knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows
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when you recollect something which belonged in an earlier chapter, do not go back, but jam it in where you are . Discursiveness does not hurt an autobiography in the least.
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No man that has ever lived has done a thing to please God--primarily. It was done to please himself, then God next.
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A man who keeps company with glaciers comes to feel tolerably insignificiant by and by. The Alps and the glaciers together are able to take every bit of conceit out of a man and reduce his self-importance to zero if he will only remain within the influence of their sublime presence long enough to give it a fair and reasonable chance to do its work.
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My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.
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No real estate is permanently valuable but the grave.
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If you want to change the future, you must change what you're doing in the present.
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There ought to be a room in every house to swear in. It's dangerous to have to repress an emotion like that.
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Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwcp is pronounced Jackson.
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The report of my death was an exaggeration.
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There has been only one Christian. They caught and curcified him-early.
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There will never be a perfect time to quit smoking. A time when you don't have any distractions or stress... If you had started today one year ago, this would not even be an issue for you today! Don't waste another year!
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Go and surprise the whole country by doing something right.
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It is so unsatisfactory to read a noble passage and have no one you love at hand to share the happiness with you. And it is unsatisfactory to read to one's self anyhow - for the uttered voice so heightens the expression.
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I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.
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One holds a bottle of red wine by the neck, a woman by the waist, and a bottle of champagne by the derriere.
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Jane Austen's books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.
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Great enterprises usually promise vastly more than they perform.
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If God is what people say there can be no one in the universe so unhappy as He for He sees unceasingly myriads of His creatures suffering unspeakable miseries--and besides this foresees how they are going to suffer during the remainder of their lives. One might as well say, As unhappy as God.
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Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
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