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



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LIGHTNING



Old Crow whiskey ad featuring Mark Twain at Klapproth's cafe in Elmira, New York from 1980.



Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.

- Letter to Henry W. Ruoff, 28 August 1908

The fear of lightning is one of the most distressing infirmities a human being can be afflicted with. It is mostly confined to women, but now and then you find it in a little dog, and sometimes a man.

- "Mrs. McWilliams and the Lightning"

The lightning there is peculiar; it is so convincing, that when it strikes a thing it doesn't leave enough of that thing behind for you to tell whether--Well, you'd think it was something valuable, and a Congressman had been there.

- "The Weather," Mark Twain's Speeches

The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.

- Letter to George Bainton, 15 October 1888





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