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Mark Twain

Mark Twain Quotes

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Famous Mark Twain Quotes

“I reverently believe that the Maker who made us all makes everything in New England but the weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices in the weather clerk's factory who experiment and learn how, in New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere if they don't get it...”

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Author:Mark Twain
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“The citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth's political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal, he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him: it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the duty of others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does.”

IfsThinkingMayDoeMatterPoliticalDutyCitizensClothesVoteExcuseSuitsDecayWornTraitorCommonwealthWorn OutAgitateDisloyal
Book:A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
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“What do you think of the human mind? I mean, in case you think there is a human mind.”

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Book:MARK TWAIN: 12 Novels, 195 Short Stories, Autobiography, 10 Travel Books, 160+ Essays & Speeches (Illustrated): Including Letters & Biographies – The Complete Works of Mark Twain: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, The Innocents Abroad, Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Life on the Mississippi…
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“The election makes me think of a story of a man who was dying. He had only two minutes to live, so he sent for a clergyman and asked him, "Where is the best place to go to?" He was undecided about it. So the minister told him that each place had its advantages--heaven for climate, and hell for society.”

ThinkingMenTwoStoriesChoicesPoliticsHeavenHellMinutesDyingAdvantageElectionClimateMinistersBest PlacePlaces To GoClergymenUndecided
Book:MARK TWAIN Ultimate Collection: 370+ Titles in One Volume (Illustrated): The Adventures of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, The £1,000,000 Bank Note, A Horse’s Tale, Yankee in King Arthur's Court, The Innocents Abroad, Life on the Mississippi…
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“I will gradually drop this subject of graveyards. I have been trying all I could to get down to the sentimental part of it, but I cannot accomplish it. I think there is no genuinely sentimental part to it. It is all grotesque, ghastly, horrible.”

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Book:The Complete Works of Mark Twain: All 13 Novels, Short Stories, Poetry and Essays
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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.”

ThinkingKnowsWantMindHumansHeartDoeTwoReasonSidesHuman BeingsArgumentReasoningTwo ThingsStatisticsPeculiarMuseDomainReflectingReligion And Politics
Author:Mark Twain
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“Always obey your parents. When they are present. This is the best policy in the long run. Because if you don't, they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgment.”

IfsThinkingKnowsLongRunningParentActingPolicyJudgmentSuperstitionsLong RunsBetter Than You
Book:Mark Twain’s Helpful Hints for Good Living: A Handbook for the Damned Human Race
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“My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.”

ThinkingChildrenMotherDealsTroubleBabyMomParentingMy MomMotherhoodEnjoyedMothers DayYour MomMotheringHappy Mothers DayMother LoveMother's LoveBest MotherYour MumGreat MotherMother ProverbsJust A MomMothers Day MessagesFunny Mothers DayFunny MotherhoodShort Mothers DayGreat MomHappy Mothers Day TextMother FlowerFunny MotherLove Your MotherMother Day PoemsGreatest MomHappy Mothers Day GreetingsLove MomGreatest Mothers DayGood Mothers Day CardsSentimental MotherMothers Day Cards
Book:Twain: Wit and Wisecracks
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“When we think of friends, and call their faces out of the shadows, and their voices out of the echoes that faint along the corridors of memory, and do it without knowing why save that we love to do it, we content ourselves that that friendship is a Reality, and not a Fancy--that it is builded upon a rock, and not upon the sands that dissolve away with the ebbing tides and carry their monuments with them.”

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Author:Mark Twain
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“When the Lord finished the world, he pronounced it good. That is what I said about my first work, too. But Time, I tell you, Time takes the confidence out of these incautious opinions. It is more than likely that He thinks about the world, now, pretty much as I think about the Innocents Abroad. The fact is, there is a trifle too much water in both.”

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Book:Mark Twain to Mrs. Fairbanks
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“I was standing in our dining-room thinking of nothing in particular, when a cablegram was put into my hand. It said, 'Susy was peacefully released today.' It is one of the mysteries of our nature that a man, all unprepared, can receive a thunder-stroke like that and live.”

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Book:Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review
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“So you see, the quality of humor is not a personal or a national monopoly. It's as free as salvation, and, I am afraid, far more widely distributed. But it has its value, I think. The hard and sordid things of life are too hard and too sordid and too cruel for us to know and touch them year after year without some mitigating influence, some kindly veil to draw over them, from time to time, to blur the craggy outlines, and make the thorns less sharp and the cruelties less malignant.”

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Book:Mainly the truth: interviews with Mark Twain
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“We are always hearing of people who are around seeking after the Truth. I have never seen a (permanent) specimen. I think he has never lived. But I have seen several entirely sincere people who thought they were (permanent) Seekers after the Truth. They sought diligently, persistently, carefully, cautiously, profoundly, with perfect honesty and nicely adjusted judgment- until they believed that without doubt or question they had found the Truth. That was the end of the search. The man spent the rest of his hunting up shingles wherewith to protect his Truth from the weather.”

PeopleThinkingMenEndsTruthFoundPerfectDoubtHonestyHe ManProtectJudgmentSeekingHearingWeatherPermanentSincereHuntingSeekersShingles
Author:Mark Twain
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“In America, we hurry-which is well; but when the day's work is done, we go on thinking of losses and gains, we plan for the morrow, we even carry our business cares to bed with us...we burn up our energies with these excitements, and either die early or drop into a lean and mean old age at a time of life which they call a man's prime in Europe...What a robust people, what a nation of thinkers we might be, if we would only lay ourselves on the shelf occasionally and renew our edges!”

PeopleIfsThinkingMenWellsMeanDoneMightCareAgeAmericaDiesEnergyNationsWorkLossPlansGoes OnBedGainsEuropeLaysEdgesOld AgeExcitementPrimeThinkerShelvesMorrowRobust
Book:Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations
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