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

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You may say organize, organize, organize but there may be so much organization that it will interfere with the work to be done.
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An open mind leaves a chance for someone to drop a worthwhile thought in it.
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I always did hate for anyone to know what my plans or hopes or prospects were—for, if I kept people in ignorance in these matters, no one could be disappointed but myself, if they were not realized.
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Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
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For England must not fall: it would mean an inundation of Russian & German political degradations which would envelop the globe & steep it in a sort of Middle-Age night & slaverly which would last till Christ comes again - which I hope he will not do he made trouble enough before.
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Is the human race a joke? Was it devised and patched together in a dull time when there was nothing important to do?
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Many people have the reasoning facility, but no one uses it in religious matters.
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But soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, But get thee to a nunnery - go!
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Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
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It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one's head.
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Once I talked to the inmates of an insane asylum in Hartford. I have talked to idiots a thousand times, but only once to the insane.
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The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
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Humor is the good natured side of a truth.
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I've come loaded with statistics, for I've noticed that a man can't prove anything without statistics. No man can.
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All my life I have been honest-comparatively honest. I could never use money I had not made honestly-I could only lend it.
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Nothing incites to money-crimes like great poverty or great wealth.
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Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?
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We must put up with clothes as they are they have their reason for existing. They are on us to expose us to advertise what we wear them to conceal.
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Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.
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A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.
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