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Directory of Mark Twain's maxims, quotations, and various opinions:

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GOODNESS


To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
- Following the Equator

It's noble to be good, and it's nobler to teach others to be good, and less trouble.
- Remarks at the opening of the Mark Twain Library, Redding, CT

It is very wearing to be good.
- Life on the Mississippi

Be good and you will be lonesome.
- Following the Equator

There's a good spot tucked away somewhere in everybody. You'll be a long time finding it, sometimes.
- "Refuge of the Derelicts"

Twain by Goodman

Portrait by Arthur Jule Goodman from
Illustrated American, July 11, 1891.
From the Dave Thomson collection.


Half the results of a good intention are evil; half the results of an evil intention are good.
- "The Dervish and the Offensive Stranger"

I am not on earth to do good--at least not intentionally.
- attributed to Mark Twain by Elinor Glyn, Romantic Adventure

Do good when you can, and charge when you think they will stand it.
- More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927

All the talk used to be about doing people good, now it is about doing people.
- More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927

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