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Circumstances make man, not man circumstances.

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
Men
Determinism
Circumstances
Make

More quotes by Mark Twain

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What do we call love, hate, charity, revenge, humanity, forgiveness? Different results of the master impulse, the necessity of securing one's self-approval.
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There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless.
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We like to read about rich people in the newspapers the papers know it, and they do their best to keep this appetite liberally fed.
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A banquet is probably the most fatiguing thing in the world except ditchdigging. It is the insanest of all recreations. The inventor of it overlooked no detail that could furnish weariness, distress, harassment, and acute and long-sustained misery of mind and body.
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There is not an acre of ground on the globe that is in possession of its rightful owner, or that has not been taken away from owner after owner, cycle afer cycle, by force and bloodshed.
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One thing at a time, is my motto - and just play that thing for all it is worth, even if it's only tto pair and a jack.
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No throne exists that has a right to exist, and no symbol of it, flying from any flagstaff, is righteously entitled to wear any device but the skull and crossbones of that kindred industry which differs from royalty only businesswise-merely as retail differs from wholesale.
Mark Twain
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[I] shall never use profanity except in discussing house rent and taxes. Indeed, upon second thought, I will not use it then, for it is unchristian, inelegant, and degrading--though to speak truly I do not see how house rent and taxes are going to be discussed worth a cent without it.
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Each man is afraid of his neighbor's disapproval - a thing which, to the general run of the human race, is more dreaded than wolves and death.
Mark Twain
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Between believing a thing and thinking you KNOW is only a small step and quickly taken.
Mark Twain
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Often a quite assified remark becomes sanctified by use and petrified by custom it is then a permanency, its term of activity a geologic period.
Mark Twain
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One frequently only finds out how really beautiful a beautiful woman is after considerable acquaintance with her.
Mark Twain
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Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.
Mark Twain
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Education is what remains when what is learned has been taken away.
Mark Twain
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Familiarity breeds contempt. How accurate that is. The reason we hold truth in such respect is because we have so little opportunity to get familiar with it.
Mark Twain
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I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie I can, but I won't.
Mark Twain
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As a rule, we go about with masks, we go about looking honest, and we are able to conceal ourselves all through the day.
Mark Twain
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None of us can have as many virtues as the fountain-pen, or half its cussedness but we can try.
Mark Twain
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There are things which some people never attempt during their whole lives, but one of these is not poetry. Poetry attacks all human beings sooner or later, and, like the measles, is mild or violent according to the age of the sufferer.
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Our best built certainties are but sand-houses and subject to damage from any wind of doubt that blows
Mark Twain