Quote

There is no family in America without a clock, and consequently there is no fair pretext for the usual Sunday medley of dreadful sounds that issues from our steeples.

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
America
Clock
Without
Fairs
Medley
Sounds
Steeples
Fair
Pretext
Issues
Dreadful
Church
Consequently
Sound
Usual
Family
Sunday

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The new political gospel: public office is private graft.
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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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Adam did not want the apple for the apple's sake he wanted it because it was forbidden.
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Between believing a thing and thinking you KNOW is only a small step and quickly taken.
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A historian who would convey the truth has got to lie. Often he must enlarge the truth by diameters, otherwise his reader would not be able to see it.
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Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.
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There is nothing in the world like persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus.
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I would not read the proof of one of my books for any fair & reasonable sum whatever, if I could get out of it. The proof-reading on the P & Pauper cost me the last rags of my religion.
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The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopt.
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Learning softeneth the heart and breedeth gentleness and charity.
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Yes, always avoid violence. In this age of charity and kindliness, the time has gone by for such things. Leave dynamite to the low and unrefined.
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I wish I could make him understand that a loving good heart is riches enough, and that without it intellect is poverty.
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Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs one step at a time.
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You can't pray a lie -- I found that out.
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I have always been rather better treated in San Francisco than I actually deserved.
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The report of my death was an exaggeration.
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I don't believe any of you have ever read Paradise Lost, and you don't want to. That's something that you just want to take on trust. It's a classic ... something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
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He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
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