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Duties are not performed for duty's sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty - the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself.

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
Make
Duties
Would
Accountability
Men
Neglect
Uncomfortable
Sake
Duty
Performs
Making
Agreeable
Spirit
Performed

More quotes by Mark Twain

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But we love the Old Travelers. We love to hear them prate and drivel and lie.
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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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It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
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Difference between savage and civilized man: one is painted, the other gilded.
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I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.
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Wit and Humor - if any difference, it is in duration - lightning and electric light. Same material, apparently but one is vivid, and can do damage - the other fools along and enjoys elaboration.
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The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
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God puts something good and loveable in every man His hands create.
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These are the true and only God, mighty and supreme.
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We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
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Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it -- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.
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It may be called the Master Passion, the hunger for self-approval.
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Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
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Genius has no youth, but starts with the ripeness of age and old experience.
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I said nothing of the sort.
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I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.
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The lightning there is peculiar it is so convincing, that when it strikes a thing it doesn't leave enough of that thing behind for you to tell whether-Well, you'd think it was something valuable, and a Congressman had been there.
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Life does not consist mainly - or even largely - of facts and happenings.
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I can understand German as well as the maniac that invented it, but I talk it best through an interpreter.
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