Quote

It makes one hope and believe that a day will come when, in the eye of the law, literary property will be as sacred as whiskey, or any other of the necessaries of life. It grieves me to think how far more profound and reverent a respect the law would have for literature if a body could only get drunk on 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
Believe
Literature
Whiskey
Would
Law
Grieving
Think
Reading
Literary
Thinking
Eye
Drunk
Life
Hope
Profound
Makes
Sacred
Necessaries
Body
Property
Grieves
Come
Respect
Reverent

More quotes by Mark Twain

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You know that kind of quiver that trembles around through you when you are seeing something so strange and enchanting and wonderful that it is just a fearful joy to be alive and look at it and you know how you gaze, and your lips turn dry and your breath comes short, but you wouldn't be anywhere but there, not for the world.
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I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.
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They do say that when a man starts down hill everybody is ready to help him with a kick, and I suppose it is so.
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The pulpit and the optimist are always talking about the human race's steady march toward ultimate perfection. As usual, they leave out the statistics. It is the pulpit's way - the optimist's way.
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That's the difference between governments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do.
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You can never find a Christian who has acquired this valuable knowledge, this saving knowledge, by any process but the everlasting and all-sufficient 'people say.'
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It is so unsatisfactory to read a noble passage and have no one you love at hand to share the happiness with you. And it is unsatisfactory to read to one's self anyhow - for the uttered voice so heightens the expression.
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Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever.
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I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.
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The dreamer's valuation of a thing lost - not another man's - is the only standard to measure it by, and his grief for it makes it large and great and fine, and is worthy of our reverence in all cases.
Mark Twain
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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.
Mark Twain
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A little more kindness, A little less speed, A little more giving, A little less greed, A little more smile, A little less frown, A little less kicking, A man while he's down, A little more We, A little less I, A little more laugh, A little less cry, A little more flowers, On the pathway of life, And fewer on graves, At the end of the stri
Mark Twain
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I was born modest not all over, but in spots.
Mark Twain
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Are you so unobservant as not to have found out that sanity and happiness are an impossible combination?
Mark Twain
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Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.
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We had an abundance of mangoes, papaias and bananas here, but the pride of the islands, the most delicious fruit known to men, cherimoya, was not in season. It has a soft pulp, like a pawpaw, and is eaten with a spoon.
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There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practiced in the tricks and delusions of oratory
Mark Twain
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If smoking cigars is not permitted in heaven, I won''t go.
Mark Twain
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Sane and intelligent human beings are like all other human beings, and carefully and cautiously and diligently conceal their private real opinions from the world and give out fictitious ones in their stead for general consumption.
Mark Twain
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There are no accidents, all things have a deep and calculated purpose sometimes the methods employed by Providence seem strange and incongruous, but we have only to be patient and wait for the result: then we recognize that no others would have answered the purpose, and we are rebuked and humbled.
Mark Twain