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It's an epitome of life. The first half of it consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance the last half consists of the chance without the capacity.

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
Last
Half
Epitome
Enjoy
Consists
Birthday
Firsts
Enjoyment
Without
Capacity
First
Chance
Life
Lasts

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We Americans worship the almighty dollar! Well, it is a worthier god than Heredity Privilege.
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Like most people, I often feel mean, and act accordingly.
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The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible.
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If you can't get a compliment any other way, pay yourself one.
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A joke, even if it be a lame one, is nowhere so keenly relished or quickly applauded as in a murder trial.
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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?
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The proverb says, Born lucky, always lucky, and I am very superstitious. As a small boy I was notoriously lucky. It was usual for one or two of our lads (per annum) to get drowned in the Mississippi or in Bear Creek, but I was pulled out in a 2/3 drowned condition 9 times before I learned to swim, and was considered to be a cat in disguise.
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The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing, it is the thing to watch over and care for and be loyal to institutions are extraneous. . . .
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There is a great difference between feeding parties to wild beasts and stirring up their finer feelings in an inquisition. One is the system of degraded barbarians, the other of enlightened civilized people.
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He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
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I prefer milk because I am a Prohibitionist, but I do not go to it for inspiration.
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If I'd seen a playwright ever write an' play at the same time, I'd have given 'em more of a chance at cards. Can I get an 'amen?'
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College is a place where a professor's lecture notes go straight to the students' lecture notes, without passing through the brains of either.
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To get the full value of joy You must have someone to divide it with. After all these years I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.
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[On Dutch flat poetry]: It is too smooth and blubbery it reads like butter-milk gurgling from a jug.
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Patriotism is merely a religion-love of country, worship of country, devotion to the country's flag and honor and welfare.
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It is higher and nobler to be kind.
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How lovely is death and how niggardly it is doled out.
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He was a solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.
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The humorous story is told gravely the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it.
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