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

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VALUES

Bust by Russell
Bust of Mark Twain by Walter Russell,1935 located in the Museum next to Clemens's Boyhood Home in Hannibal, MO. Photo from the Dave Thomson collection.
Moralizing, I observed, then, that "all that glitters is not gold." Mr. Ballou said I could go further than that, and lay it up among my treasures of knowledge, that nothing that glitters is gold. So I learned then, once for all, that gold in its native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and that only lowborn metals excite the admiration of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter. However, like the rest of the world, I still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying men of mica. Commonplace human nature cannot rise above that.
- Roughing It

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