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A pessimist is a well-informed optimist.

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
Informed
Optimist
Wells
Well
Pessimist

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But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time.
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The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing, it is the thing to watch over and care for and be loyal to institutions are extraneous. . . .
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Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born --a hundred million years --and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together.
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There are some few people I respect and admire, but I don't think much of the species.
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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 wasn't worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two million dollars.
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Customs do not concern themselves with right or wrong or reason. But they have to be obeyed one reasons all around them until he is tired, but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden.
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There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.
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... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often picturesque liar.
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The modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism is loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.
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The Book of Mormon is chloroform in print
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Principles aren't of much account anyway, except at election time. After that you hang them up to let them season.
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I've never let my school interfere with my education.
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If true, rarely beautiful. If beautiful, rarely true.
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I am not given to exaggeration, and when I say a thing I mean it.
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Some of us cannot be optimists, but all of us can be bigamists
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The proverb says that Providence protects children and idiots. This is really true. I know because I have tested it.
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A monarch, when good, is entitled to the consideration which we accord to a pirate who keeps Sunday School between crimes when bad, he is entitled to none at all.
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Conductor, when you receive a fare, Punch in the presence of the passenjare. A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare, Punch in the presence of the passenjare! Punch, brothers! punch with care! Punch in the presence of the passenjare!
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How far we travel in life matters far less than those we meet along the way.
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