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The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness--your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture....He takes upon himself to be the week-day preacher.

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
Humor
Awaken
Week
Scorn
Takes
Preacher
Upon
Humorous
Love
Pity
Imposture
Kindness
Professes
Direct
Untruth
Writer
Pretension

More quotes by Mark Twain

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Life is short. Forgive quickly, kiss slowly and love truly.
Mark Twain
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The dog is a gentleman I hope to go to his heaven not man's.
Mark Twain
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What work I have done I have done because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn't have done it. . . . The work that is really a man's own work is play and not work at all. . . . When we talk about the great workers of the world we really mean the great players of the world.
Mark Twain
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Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
Mark Twain
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Never be haughty to the humble, never be humble to the haughty.
Mark Twain
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The smallest minds and the selfishest souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes.
Mark Twain
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We don't cut up when mad men are bred by the old legitimate regular stock religions, but we can't allow wildcat religions to indulge in such disastrous experiments.
Mark Twain
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When one's character begins to fall under suspicion and disfavor, how swift, then, is the work of disintegration and destruction.
Mark Twain
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There's some human instinct which makes a man treasure what he is not to make any use of, because everybody does not possess it.
Mark Twain
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Time spent with your children is time wisely spent.
Mark Twain
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Ours is the land of the free-nobody denies that-nobody challenges it. (Maybe it is because we won't let other people testify.)
Mark Twain
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The proverb says that Providence protects children and idiots. This is really true. I know because I have tested it.
Mark Twain
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When politics enter into municipal government, nothing resulting therefrom in the way of crimes and infamies is then incredible. It actually enables one to accept and believe the impossible.
Mark Twain
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It is not worth while to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible.
Mark Twain
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I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast-but for luncheon-for dinner- for tea-for supper-for between meals.
Mark Twain
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We find not much in ourselves to admire, we are always privately wanting to be like somebody else. If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes
Mark Twain
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By common consent of all the nations and all the ages the most valuable thing in this world is the homage of men, whether deserved or undeserved.
Mark Twain
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Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against insanity. That is where the true evil lies.
Mark Twain
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We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again and that is well but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
Mark Twain
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Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress but I repeat myself.
Mark Twain