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The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow.

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
Source
Humor
Joy
Secret
Sorrow

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I don't mind what the opposition say of me so long as they don't tell the truth about me. But when they descend to telling the truth about me I consider that this is taking an unfair advantage.
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I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.
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If ever you've been down in the dumps, hear these iconic authors share with you more than their writing wisdom.
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Sum all the gifts that man is endowed with, and we give our greatest share of admiration to his energy. And today, if I were a heathen, I would rear a statue to Energy and fall down and worship it!
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Damn the subjunctive. It brings all our writers to shame.
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Sometimes my feelings are so hot that I have to take the pen and put them out on paper to keep them from setting me afire inside then all that ink and labor are wasted because I can't print the results
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I have a religion-but you will call it blasphemy. It is that there is a God for the rich man but none for the poor.....Perhaps your religion will sustain you,will feed you-I place no dependence in mine. Our religions are alike, though, in one respect-neither can make a man happy when he is out of luck.
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Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.
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There warn't anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't go to church only when they've got to but a hog is different.
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Agassiz does recommend authors to eat fish, because the phosphorus in it makes brains. But I cannot help you to a decision about the amount you need to eat. Perhaps a couple of whales would be enough.
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I knew a man who grabbed a cat by the tail and learned forty percent more about cats than the man who didn't.
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If I can capture truth in its simplest form, beauty will follow like a sledgehammer.
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There is no security in life, only opportunity.
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Tell me about a person's family, friends, and community, and I'll tell you what his opinions are.
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One can enjoy a rainbow without necessarily forgetting the forces that made it.
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Never tell a lie-except for practice.
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There are no people who are quite so vulgar as the over-refined.
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A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.
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I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.
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Always obey your parents - when they are present.
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