_"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." -- Mark Twain

Your turn....



Giz

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Non gratum anus rodentum

"America is a nation without a distinct criminal class with the possible exception of Congress." -Mark Twain-

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Misty

The report of my death was an exaggeration -Mark Twain

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SWCA #2306
DAV in honor of POP

Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

I have never taken any exercise, except for sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any. Exercise is loathsome.
Mark Twain, Essays: Seventieth Birthday.

WATERMELON

It is the chief of this world's luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took; we know it because she repented.

Gotta love Twain.Here's one of my favorites.

"Heaven goes by favor.If it went by merit,you would stay out and your dog would go in."

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Dum vivo cano

How about some Twain on Guns?


GUNS

The Southern communities are just as peaceful and religious as the Northern. The Southerner may be more highly cultured, and anything he does is naturally conspicuous. Carrying a revolver is a fad, just a fad or a fashion; but the revolvers are mightly harmless. Of course there are desperadoes on the frontier, but that is the only part of the world they live in. Their deeds give a false character to their district. I have carried a revolver; lots of us do, but they are the most innocent things in the world.
- "Mark Twain Put to the Question" interview, Adelaide South Australian Register, 10/14/1895

Don't meddle with old unloaded firearms. They are the most deadly and unerring things that have ever been created by man. You don't have to take any pains at all with them; you don't have to have a rest, you don't have to have any sights on the gun, you don't have to take aim, even. No, you just pick out a relative and bang away, and you are sure to get him. A youth who can't hit a cathedral at thirty yards with a Gatling gun in three-quarters of an hour, can take up an old empty musket and bag his mother every time at a hundred. Think what Waterloo would have been if one of the armies had been boys armed with old rusty muskets supposed not to be loaded, and the other army had been composed of their female relations. The very thought of it makes me shudder.
- Advice to Youth speech, 4/15/1882

I was armed to the teeth with a pitiful little Smith & Wesson's seven-shooter, which carried a ball like a homopathic pill, and it took the whole seven to make a dose for an adult. But I thought it was grand. It appeared to me to be a dangerous weapon. It had only one fault--you could not hit anything with it. One of our 'conductors' practiced awhile on a cow with it, and as long as she stood still and behaved herself she was safe; but as soon as she went to moving about, and he got to shooting at other things, she came to grief.
- Roughing It

There is no such thing as a worthless person for even he can be used as a bad example.

Golf is a good walk, spoiled. -Mark Twain


rags

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RIP Shipmate

A person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was getting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn't ever going to grow dim or doubtful. -Mark Twain

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

Moderation in all things. I only smoke one cigar at a time.

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Field Researcher. IGC

I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

" Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times".

I can only paraphrase this story, but Twain told of a virtuous woman who died. Twain said that if she had just kept a few vices it might have saved her life as she could then have something to give up and save her life, as a ship at sea could throw jetsam overboard in a storm. It is good to cultivate a few vices in order to keep one's health.

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.
But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

Mark Twain.

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NRA Benefactor/Cert Instructor

"Whenever you see an adjective, hunt it down and kill it."

Hope this helps, and Semper Fi.

Ron H. (who makes his modest living as an editor)

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Wishin' don't make it so.

Off topic--Went to my 45th class reunion Saturday. My English teacher (4 years) was there, my typing (keyboarding) teacher, and the guidance counselor (92 years old and drove 40 miles to get there), who told me I wouldn't do well in college because I couldn't spell. I sat with them at dinner-- just to tell them that I had made a living as a writer for five years. Computers with spell check and editors made it possible. The English teacher did mention that most editors are not very good. I am sure that you are one of the good ones.
I enjoy Mark Twain.

"If I could have stolen his coat, I would have done it. When I meet a man like that, I want something to remember him by." The Innocents Abroad

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VIVERE MILITARE EST

A gold mine is a hole in the ground with a liar standing by it.

"Beautiful women should be worshipped.....like me" -Shania Twain.

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NRA Certified Instructor

"Years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do." - Mark Twain

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CSM, U S Army(Ret) 1963-1990

If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed. -- Mark Twain

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CSM, U S Army(Ret) 1963-1990

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain't so."

"Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you glad to see me"...."A hard man is good to find". Mae West.

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a
member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

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Jim Supica

All good ones. (The real Twain ones, anyway.) OK you Mark Twain experts, my memory fails me. What was the story he told involving a tarring & feathering wherein the punchline was something like, "If it weren't for the honor of the thing, I would just as soon walk." I've thought of that quip a hundred times but cannot remember the story or the character.

Edit - so far, Jim wins.

"If It Weren't for the Honor of the Thing ...
... I'd rather walk."

Supposedly that's the punchline of joke Abraham Lincoln used to tell about a man who was tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail.

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Das Gras ist grün....

"It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense".

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and what his trumpet saith

I have the complete Mark Twain on my Kindle and a search for 'tar' didn't turn up the quote. I think it was someone else.

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VIVERE MILITARE EST

Good to see so many guys appreciate Sam Clemens. I work just a few 100 yards from where he's buried.

Don

I have no respect for a man who can spell a word only one way...M.T.

A shame to say it appears the quip is properly attributed to A. Lincoln, but this is no great hardship on Clemens since he came up with far more than his share of good stuff.

Lincoln Studies: Ridden out of Town on a Rail