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But it was ever thus, all through my life: whenever I have diverged from custom and principle and uttered a truth, the rule has been that the hearer hadn't strength of mind enough to believe it.

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
Ever
Hadn
Enough
Principle
Mind
Whenever
Believe
Thus
Diverged
Life
Rule
Hearer
Strength
Uttered
Principles
Custom
Truth
Customs

More quotes by Mark Twain

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Travel is lethal to prejudice.
Mark Twain
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A big leather-bound volume makes an ideal razorstrap. A thing book is useful to stick under a table with a broken caster to steady it. A large, flat atlas can be used to cover a window with a broken pane. And a thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.
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Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwcp is pronounced Jackson.
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To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is correct.
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When someone dies, it is like when your house burns down it isn't for years that you realize the full extent of your loss.
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I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.
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Every year you wait, long ago gets farther away.
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It takes some little time to accept and realize the fact that while you have been growing old, your friends have not been standing still, in that matter.
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Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
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Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of growths
Mark Twain
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Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak.
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A dollar picked up in the road is more satisfaction to you than the ninety-and -nine which you had to work for, and money won at faro or in stock snuggles into your heart in the same way.
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The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.
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I like criticism, but it must be my way.
Mark Twain
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What a world of trouble those who never marry escape! There are many happy matches, it is true, and sometimes my dear, and my love come from the heart but what sensible bachelor, rejoicing in his freedom and years of discretion, will run the tremendous risk?
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Once you've put one of his [Henry James] books down, you simply can't pick it up again.
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It is at our mother's knee that we acquire our noblest and truest and highest ideals.
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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
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The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.
Mark Twain
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Age enlarges and enriches the powers of some musical instruments - notably those of the violin - but it seems to set a piano's teeth on edge.
Mark Twain