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How empty is theory in the presence of fact!

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
Presence
Empty
Theory
Fact
Facts

More quotes by Mark Twain

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But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of therest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before.
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The moral of it is this: If you are of any account, stay at home and make your way by faithful diligence but if you are 'no account,' go away from home, and then you will have to work, whether you want to or not. Thus you become a blessing to your friends by ceasing to be a nuisance to them-if the people you go among suffer by the operation.
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Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead. Death, the refuge, the solace, the best and kindliest and most prized friend and benefactor of the erring, the forsaken, the old and weary and broken of heart.
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Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
Mark Twain
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Principles aren't of much account anyway, except at election time. After that you hang them up to let them season.
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When your opinions start to coincide with those of the majority, it is time to reconsider your opinions.
Mark Twain
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The critic's symbol should be the tumble-bug: he deposits his egg in somebody else's dung, otherwise he could not hatch it.
Mark Twain
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I have always been rather better treated in San Francisco than I actually deserved.
Mark Twain
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It is wiser to find out than to suppose.
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Never do wrong when people are looking.
Mark Twain
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We laugh and laugh. Then cry and cry- Then feebler laugh, Then die.
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It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.
Mark Twain
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Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
Mark Twain
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To believe yourself brave is to be brave it is the one only essential thing.
Mark Twain
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[I] shall never use profanity except in discussing house rent and taxes. Indeed, upon second thought, I will not use it then, for it is unchristian, inelegant, and degrading--though to speak truly I do not see how house rent and taxes are going to be discussed worth a cent without it.
Mark Twain
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Old habits cannot be thrown out the upstairs window. They have to be coaxed downstairs one step at a time.
Mark Twain
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I have done more for San Francisco than any of its old residents. Since I left there it has increased in population fully 300,000. I could have done more - I could have gone earlier - it was suggested.
Mark Twain
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Often a quite assified remark becomes sanctified by use and petrified by custom it is then a permanency, its term of activity a geologic period.
Mark Twain
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Switzerland is simply a large, lumpy, solid rock with a thin skin of grass stretched over it.
Mark Twain
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The exquisitely bad is as satisfying to the soul as the exquisitely good. Only the mediocre is unendurable.
Mark Twain