Quote

We are strange beings, we seem to go free, but we go in chains - chains of training, custom, convention, association, environment - in a word, Circumstance, and against these bonds the strongest of us struggle in vain.

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
Free
Training
Custom
Seems
Beings
Circumstance
Circumstances
Conventions
Seem
Association
Strange
Customs
Environment
Strongest
Struggle
Chains
Bonds
Word
Vain
Convention

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Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead. Death, the refuge, the solace, the best and kindliest and most prized friend and benefactor of the erring, the forsaken, the old and weary and broken of heart.
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To place man properly at the present time, he stands somewhere between the angels and the French.
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If I had more time, I would have written less.
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Never be haughty to the humble, never be humble to the haughty.
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You can't break a bad habit by throwing it out the window. You've got to walk it slowly down the stairs.
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Man is a marvelous curiosity...he thinks he is the Creator's pet...he even believes the Creator loves him has passion for him sits up nights to admire him yes and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks he listens. Isn't it a quaint idea.
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There are 869 different forms of lying, but only one of them has been squarely forbidden. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
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The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
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I am losing enough sleep to supply a worn-out army.
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The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.
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As a rule we develop a borrowed European idea forward, and ... Europe develops a borrowed American idea backwards.
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There will never be a perfect time to quit smoking. A time when you don't have any distractions or stress... If you had started today one year ago, this would not even be an issue for you today! Don't waste another year!
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We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world and it's efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read-
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There is not a single celebrated Southern name in any of the departments of human industry except those of war, assassination, lynching, murder, the duel, repudiation, & massacre.
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That cat will write her autograph all over your leg if you let her.
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Braveness is resistance to concern, mastery of panic - not absense of anxiety.
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There is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp but it is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it.
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It may be called the Master Passion, the hunger for self-approval.
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Let us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of this scene
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Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.
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