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I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatsoever.

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
Confidence
Haven
Particle
Men
Redeeming
Particles
Whatsoever
Petty
Vices
Havens

More quotes by Mark Twain

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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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Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.
Mark Twain
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If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy - if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places.
Mark Twain
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The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing, it is the thing to watch over and care for and be loyal to institutions are extraneous. . . .
Mark Twain
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I knew a man who grabbed a cat by the tail and learned forty percent more about cats than the man who didn't.
Mark Twain
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We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles.
Mark Twain
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There is no urge so great as for one man to edit another man's work.
Mark Twain
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The proverb says, Born lucky, always lucky, and I am very superstitious. As a small boy I was notoriously lucky. It was usual for one or two of our lads (per annum) to get drowned in the Mississippi or in Bear Creek, but I was pulled out in a 2/3 drowned condition 9 times before I learned to swim, and was considered to be a cat in disguise.
Mark Twain
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... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often picturesque liar.
Mark Twain
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In God We Trust. It is the choicest compliment that has ever been paid us, and the most gratifying to our feelings. It is simple, direct, gracefully phrased it always sounds well - In God We Trust. I don't believe it would sound any better if it were true.
Mark Twain
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The old man laughed loud and joyously, shook up the details of his anatomy from head to foot, and ended by saying that such a laugh was money in a man's pocket, because it cut down the doctor's bills like everything.
Mark Twain
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A woman springs a sudden reproach upon you which provokes a hot retort, and then she will presently ask you to apologize.
Mark Twain
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He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
Mark Twain
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Every civilization carries the seeds of its own destruction, and the same cycle shows in them all. The Republic is born, flourishes, decays into plutocracy, and is captured by the shoemaker whom the mercenaries and millionaires make into a king. The people invent their oppressors, and the oppressors serve the function for which they are invented.
Mark Twain
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Half of the results of a good intentions are evil half the results of an evil intention are good.
Mark Twain
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There is no security in life, only opportunity.
Mark Twain
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Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
Mark Twain
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But death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness death was man’s best friend when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free.
Mark Twain
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Conformity—the natural instinct to passively yield to that vague something recognized as authority.
Mark Twain
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I speak French with timidity, and not flowingly--except when excited. When using that language I have often noticed that I have hardly ever been mistaken for a Frenchman, except, perhaps, by horses never, I believe, by people.
Mark Twain