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Nothing so focuses the mind as the prospect of being hanged.
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
Hanged
Focuses
Prospect
Nothing
Mind
More quotes by Mark Twain
India is, the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only.
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Out of the unconscious lips of babes and sucklings are we satirized.
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A home without a cat — and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat — may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?
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Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.
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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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Never tell a lie-except for practice.
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Is not this insanity plea becoming rather common? Is it not so common that the reader confidently expects to see it offered in every criminal case that comes before the courts?... Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against insanity.
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Guides cannot master the subtleties of the American joke.
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The humorous story is told gravely the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it.
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As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake.
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Give a man a reputation as an early riser and he can sleep 'til noon.
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We are called the nation of inventors. And we are. We could still claim that title and wear its loftiest honors if we had stopped with the first thing we ever invented, which was human liberty.
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In the ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the name of Canty, who did not want him.
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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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We are always too busy for our children we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them but the most precious gift, our personal association, which means so much to them, we give grudgingly.
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For England must not fall: it would mean an inundation of Russian & German political degradations which would envelop the globe & steep it in a sort of Middle-Age night & slaverly which would last till Christ comes again - which I hope he will not do he made trouble enough before.
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There are people who think that honesty is always the best policy. This is a superstition. There are times when the appearance of it is worth six of it.
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An occultation of Venus is not half so difficult as an eclipse of the sun, but because it comes seldom the world thinks it's a grand thing.
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A habit cannot be tossed out the window it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.
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