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What work I have done I have done because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn't have done 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
Play
Done
Work
Chess
Shouldn
Business

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If we only had some God in the country's laws, instead of being in such a sweat to get him into the Constitution, it would be better all around.
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A wise man does not waste so good a commodity as lying for naught.
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There is no security in life, only opportunity.
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Guides cannot master the subtleties of the American joke.
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Total abstinence is so excellent a thing that it cannot be carried to too great an extent. In my passion for it I even carry it so far as to totally abstain from total abstinence itself.
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Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so it is the sickening grammar that they use.
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Talent without work is useless, thank God
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Make your mark in New York and you are a made man.
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If there is one thing that will make a man peculiarly and insufferable self-conceited, it is to have his stomach behave itself, the first day at sea, when nearly all his comrades are seasick.
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The solution to our water problems is more rain.
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What ought to be done to the man who invented the celebrating of anniversaries? Mere killing would be too light.
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The North thinks it knows how to make corn bread, but this is a gross superstition. Perhaps no bread in the world is quite as good as Southern corn bread, and perhaps no bread in the world is quite as bad as the Northern imitation of it.
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Civilization largely consists in hiding human nature. When the barbarian learns to hide it we account him enlightened.
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That is a simple rule, and easy to remember. When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane not in all things, but in religious matters.
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Foreigners cannot enjoy our food, I suppose, any more than we can enjoy theirs. It is not strange for tastes are made, not born. I might glorify my bill of fare until I was tired but after all, the Scotchman would shake his head and say, 'Where's your haggis?' and the Fijan would sigh and say, 'Where's your missionary?'
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It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it.
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Until I came to New Mexico, I never realized how much beauty water adds to a river.
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Truth is stranger than fiction-to some people, but I am measurably familiar with it.
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Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?
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[On Dutch flat poetry]: It is too smooth and blubbery it reads like butter-milk gurgling from a jug.
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