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The happy phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest of human gifts, and the happy delivery of it another.

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
Another
Human
Phrasing
Humans
Rarest
Delivery
Flattery
Compliment
Gifts
Happy

More quotes by Mark Twain

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Does the human being reason? No he thinks, muses, reflects, but does not reason...that is, in the two things which are the peculiar domain of the heart, not the mind, politics and religion. He doesn't want to know the other side. He wants arguments and statistics for his own side, and nothing more.
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If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.
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I like criticism, but it must be my way.
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A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.
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The ordinary chestnut can beget a sickly and reluctant laugh, but it takes a horse chestnut to fetch the gorgeous big horse-laugh.
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It is a mistake that there is no bath that will cure people's manners, but drowning would help.
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We all belong to the nasty stinking little human race, & of course it is not nice for God's beloved vermin to scoff at each other... Oh, we are a nasty little lot-& to think there are people who would like to save us & continue us. It won't happen if I have any influence.
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I have done more for San Francisco than any of its old residents. Since I left there it has increased in population fully 300,000. I could have done more - I could have gone earlier - it was suggested.
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Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent then he would have eaten the serpent.
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A jay hasnt got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray and four times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise.
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To create man was a quaint and original idea, but to add the sheep was tautology.
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Shut the door not that it lets in the cold but that it lets out the coziness.
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In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.
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No child should be permitted to grow up without exercise for imagination. It enriches life for him. It makes things wonderful and beautiful.
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I could never learn to like her, except on a raft at sea with no other provisions in sight.
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A banquet is probably the most fatiguing thing in the world except ditch digging.
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I think I can say, and say with pride, that we have some legislatures that bring higher prices than any in the world.
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Let us be grateful to Adam: he cut us out of the blessing of idleness and won for us the curse of labor.
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There are those who would misteach us that to stick in a rut is consistency - and a virtue, and that to climb out of the rut is inconsistency - and a vice.
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Etiquette requires us to admire the human race.
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