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

More quotes by Mark Twain

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Heroine: Girl in a book who is saved from drowning by a hero and marries him next week, but if it was to be over again ten years later it is likely she would rather have a life-belt and he would rather have her have it. Hero: Person in a book who does things which he can't and girl marries him for it.
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Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience - 4000 critics.
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Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them.
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Praise is well, compliment is well, but affection-that is the last and most precious reward that any man can win, whether by character or achievement.
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A wise man does not waste so good a commodity as lying for naught.
Mark Twain
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You perceive I generalize with intrepidity from single instances. It is the tourist's custom.
Mark Twain
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All war must be just the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it.
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Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.
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France has usually been governed by prostitutes
Mark Twain
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Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.
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Well, no doubt it's a blessed thing to have an imagination that can always make you satisfied, no matter how you are fixed.
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I find that the further I go back, the better things were, whether they happened or not.
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It has been said that a Scotchman has not seen the world until he has seen Edinburgh and I think that I may say that an American has not seen the United States until he has seen Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
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I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.
Mark Twain
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A man who carries a cat by the tail is getting experience that will always be helpful. He isn't likely to grow dim or doubtful. Chances are, he isn't likely to carry the cat that way again, either. But if he wants to, I say let him!
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One compliment can keep me going for a whole month.
Mark Twain
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We called him Barney for short. We couldn't use his real name, there wasn't time.
Mark Twain
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I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places.
Mark Twain
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When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
Mark Twain
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To me [Edgar Allen Poe's] prose is unreadable—like Jane Austin's [sic]. No there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.
Mark Twain