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I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.

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
Time
Ironic
Letter
Entrepreneur
Humorous
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Written
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More quotes by Mark Twain

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True irreverence is disrespect for another man's god.
Mark Twain
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Go and surprise the whole country by doing something right.
Mark Twain
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Wisdom teaches us that none but birds should go out early, and that not even birds should do it unless they are out of worms.
Mark Twain
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In India, 'cold weather' is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy.
Mark Twain
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Tell me about a person's family, friends, and community, and I'll tell you what his opinions are.
Mark Twain
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Let your joy be unconfined!
Mark Twain
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I saw men whom thirty years had changed but slightly but their wives had grown old. These were good women it is very wearing to be good.
Mark Twain
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It is human to exaggerate the merits of the dead.
Mark Twain
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Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
Mark Twain
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I am not the editor of a newspaper and shall always try to do right and be good so that God will not make me one.
Mark Twain
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The Book of Mormon is chloroform in print
Mark Twain
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Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
Mark Twain
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There are things which some people never attempt during their whole lives, but one of these is not poetry. Poetry attacks all human beings sooner or later, and, like the measles, is mild or violent according to the age of the sufferer.
Mark Twain
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Drop this mean and sordid and selfish devotion to the saving of your shabby little souls, and hunt up something to do that's got some dignity to it! Risk your souls! Risk them in good causes then if you lose them, why should you care? Reform!
Mark Twain
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Among other common lies, we have the silent lie - the deception which one conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth. Many obstinate truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if they speak no lie, they lie not at all.
Mark Twain
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Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity - these are strictly confined to man he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them. They hide nothing. They are not ashamed.
Mark Twain
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Who is this Renaissance? Where did he come from? Who gave him permission to cram the Republic with his execrable daubs?
Mark Twain
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My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.
Mark Twain
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The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the tellingthe comic and the witty story upon the matter.
Mark Twain
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There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.
Mark Twain