One of my favorite American authors is well known for not only the creation of two of the country’s best known fictional characters (Huckleberry “Huck” Finn and Tom Sawyer), but for his strong wit and whimsical wisdom that so embodied many of his words. Missouri born author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, more widely known by the name Mark Twain, was a person with many hardships and joys in his life. Father, family man, world traveler, lecturer, humorist are just a few of the words used to describe him. Regardless of how one describes Mr. Clemens, he will be remembered in United States (and world) history as a very colorful person who has influenced many people with his writings and sayings. Below are some of those quotes and sayings credited to him. My expectations are that you may enjoy but a small portion of a person who made many people “think” a little bit more as well as helped people enjoy life a little more:

1. A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
2. A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.
3. A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
4. A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
5. A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.
6. Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.
7. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
8. Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
9. All generalizations are false, including this one.
10. All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.
11. Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
12. Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
13. Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.
14. Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
15. Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul.
16. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
17. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.
18. But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
19. Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.
20. By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.
21. ‘Classic.’ A book which people praise and don’t read.
22. Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.
23. Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
24. Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
25. Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
26. Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
27. Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
28. Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.
29. Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
30. Don’t say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.
31. Don’t tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.
32. Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.
33. Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
34. Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
35. Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.
36. Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
37. George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.
38. Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
39. Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.
40. Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
41. God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
42. Golf is a good walk spoiled.
43. Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
44. Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
45. Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
46. Honesty is the best policy — when there is money in it.
47. Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.
48. Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.
49. I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
50. I can live for two months on a good compliment.
51. I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
52. I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
53. I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell — you see, I have friends in both places.
54. I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.
55. I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time.
56. I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.
57. I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.
58. I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.
59. I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.
60. Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.
61. If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.
62. If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.
63. If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.
64. If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
65. It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.
66. 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.
67. It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress.
68. It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
69. It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
70. It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
71. It is easier to stay out than get out.
72. It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
73. It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.
74. It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
75. It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
76. It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
77. It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
78. Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
79. Laws control the lesser man… Right conduct controls the greater one.
80. Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
81. Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.
82. Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.
83. Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
84. Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.
85. Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
86. Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.
87. Man — a creature made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired.
88. Man is the only animal that blushes — or needs to.
89. Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.
90. Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
91. My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.
92. My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.
93. Name the greatest of all inventors: Accident.
94. Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
95. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
96. No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.
97. Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.
98. Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.
99. Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
100. One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
101. Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial “we.”
102. Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.
103. Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
104. Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
105. Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
106. Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.
107. Prosperity is the best protector of principle.
108. Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
109. Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
110. Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
111. Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
112. The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
113. The Christian’s Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.
114. The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
115. The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
116. The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
117. The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.
118. The lack of money is the root of all evil.
119. The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
120. The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.
121. The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.
122. The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.
123. The Public is merely a multiplied “me.”
124. The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.
125. The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
126. The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
127. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
128. The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.
129. The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
130. The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.
131. There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.
132. There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
133. There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one — keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.
134. There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.
135. There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.
136. There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.
137. Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered — either by themselves or by others.
138. Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.
139. To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
140. To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.
141. To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.
142. Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.
143. Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.
144. Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
145. Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
146. Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.
147. We Americans… bear the ark of liberties of the world.
148. We are all alike, on the inside.
149. We have the best government that money can buy.
150. What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.
151. What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.
152. What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.
153. What would men be without women? Scarce, sir, mighty scarce.
154. When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.
155. When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.
156. When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.
157. When in doubt tell the truth.
158. When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.
159. When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
160. When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.
161. When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.
162. Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
163. Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
164. Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.
165. Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation.
166. Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
167. Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
168. Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.
169. Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
170. You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

Have any comments? Share them below and be heard! Have a great day and enjoy life!!

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We all have stories to share. Some people have good stories, others have bad ones, but all of them are stories that talk about a person’s life and what they have learned in the process. You may find yourself in the future (if you haven’t already) learning about a personal struggle a close friend of yours is going through. You may find yourself looking at your life in a different way after learning about your friends struggle. I thought it was important for me to share with my readers what a friend of mine told me she was going through for the past year. In actuality she was going through it for most of her life. She just didn’t know it. Her story made me reflect a little on my own life.

A Friend Confided In Me

Recently a friend of mine, Linda, opened up to me about an issue she’s been facing for a long time. She told me last year she was diagnosed with a condition called “double depression”. “I’ve never heard of double depression before.” I told her.  Linda confided in me that she never had heard of it either, but that once she was diagnosed with it she felt both scared and a little bit puzzled. She had never thought anything was mentally wrong with her until a couple of doctors diagnosed her with this condition (she had gotten a second opinion to be sure). When Linda told me this, I was puzzled.

I asked her that if she thought there was nothing wrong, why she went to a doctor. On top of that why choose to go to a psychiatrist of all kinds of doctors to go to. She told me her husband John, after a few years of marriage, had asked her to check with a psychiatrist just to make sure nothing was potentially wrong.  She continued to say that John noticed that she was, over the past year or two, becoming easily aggravated with things and that she appeared to not enjoy much of anything as much as she used to.

John and Linda had known each other for a long time. Having met in college, they were friends (dating other people at the time they met). They hung out in groups with their then significant others and then later on started dating. One thing led to another and they found themselves in love and decided to get married. I have known both John and Linda since college as well and they’ve always had a great relationship. Linda mentioned that their relationship was still strong, but John was just concerned and wanted to be sure. Well, Linda told me that she and John went to a regional teaching hospital that had a reputation for having a very good psychology department. John went with her the first time, she said because she was nervous and a little anxious about visiting a psychiatrist for the first time. She told me that through her teenage years, she had been going to a counselor for what she called bouts of “the blues” that looking back she thought was simply teenage mood swings. The only thing different was that her down moods were much more prevalent and prolonged than the times she felt she wasn’t down. The down moods would last at least a week to even three weeks without letting up

A Diagnosis I’ve Never Heard Of

“The doctor I met with wanted to know everything about the bouts of ‘the blues’ I would have.” Linda told me. “How long they would last, how long the period between being down and how low I would get in comparison to when I felt normal.” She then told me that the doctor had some suspicions but didn’t want to give any diagnosis until he was sure. After a series of more questioning, the doctor told Linda that he believed she suffered from what is called “Double Depression”. Linda asked why. What the doctor told her became like a lightening strike to her she said. During the examination, the doctor (and Linda) discovered that during the times when she felt OK and not down or depressed, she wasn’t exactly happy at all. She felt just “emotionally comfortable”. She never felt better than that. All her life, long as she could remember, she never felt any happier than that. In fact, it turned out she never experienced what it was like to be happy at all. John asked the doctor how that could be. So many times he had witnessed Linda being happy. He then mentioned as few examples where he saw Linda being happy. Always smiling and enjoying herself. Linda then confided in John that she never felt anything more than emotionally comfortable. At time it would simply be emotionally numb. She didn’t want people to be uncomfortable around her so she would always put on a smile and laugh some in order to be in the norm of the moment.  She thought everyone felt that way and that it was normal.

John and Linda decided to get a second opinion with another doctor at a different practice and discovered the second doctor and his office partner giving the same diagnosis of double depression. “This was such an eye opener to me.” Linda told me. “All my life I remember feeling emotionally OK as what I would be feeling whenever I wasn’t sad or depressed. When I was depressed, it would be like that for a couple of days or up to a week. When I was feeling OK it would be for a couple of days. I thought everyone felt that way and that it was simply ‘Yeah, life is hard so get over it and live on’ type of attitude everyone experienced.” All the times in Linda’s life when she wasn’t feeling OK she would just put on a content face and live day to day. When she was feeling OK was when she would put on a smile. To me this sounded strange at first but looking at it from her perspective I understood her reasoning. Growing up we all get accustomed to the apparent norms in life. The way others act around situations, the way people behave on a day to day basis and the way we ourselves fit into the entire life equation.

As I heard Linda telling me all this, I found myself appreciating my own life a little more. I knew how it felt to be happy. I never felt just OK or emotionally numb when I was “feeling my best”. Linda on the other hand never experienced that all her life.

Linda then asked, “Have you noticed if I seemed more relaxed or a little different the past 6 months?” I had to admit that my girlfriend and I had commented on more that one occasion on how Linda seemed to have changed recently. She seemed to be enjoying things more and have even become a little more outgoing than we were use to seeing. All good things we thought. “The person who has seen the most change was John. He seems to be much happier in our relationship. Not that he wasn’t happy before.” Linda mentioned. “It’s just that John was concerned there was more to it and he wanted to be sure.”

“So what causes double-depression?” I asked and Linda said that the doctors aren’t quite sure what causes it. What they do know is that many people have made great improvements with the use of some medications. “I was nervous at first. Not knowing what the medications would be doing to me.” Linda said.  The only experience she had with these types of situations was what she saw in many movies and television shows (shows where people in psychiatric wards of clinics and hospitals acted all strange while being on medications for mental conditions). The doctor told her that many times the reason for depression is a chemical imbalance that may exist in the body and that certain medications may help the body better regulate itself. With that said she said she decided to give it a try with the medication and have the doctors keep tabs on her with periodic check up to see how things are going. Many of the medications that help the body regulate the chemicals it naturally produces can and will most likely take a few weeks for a person to notice any difference.

After a month of starting the new medication, she noticed a little bit of a change. The one who noticed the most was her husband John. She wasn’t as snappy at him or others, and she seemed to be enjoying her time more was what John told her. As time went on (weeks/then months) her whole family noticed the change. A change for the better she said. She was calmer and not as quick to pre-judge people or give a snappy opinionated sounding remark on something she didn’t agree with. “There was one other thing,” Linda told me, “I started to feel a strange feeling. I never felt this feeling before and so it was making me a little nervous and at times scared. The funny thing I came to realize is that the feeling I was now feeling was happiness.” Linda had never really experienced the emotion of happiness in her life. “It was such an alien feeling to me. I was more than comfortable. I felt as though I was enjoying the day more. The time I was having just walking from one point to another. After work, I’d be walking to my car a few blocks away and I remember feeling good. Almost too good I thought. That is what got me scared a little. Meeting with my doctor, and discussing it with my husband, is when I realized the emotion was happiness.” Linda told me. “I found myself looking out the window of the building I work in or sitting at home looking at pictures I had on my wall of family and friends and thinking ‘I really am grateful to have such a loving family and many good friends.’ ”

An Interesting Epiphany Came My Way

As I was hearing all this, it made me wonder how many other people out there take happiness for granted. Hearing Linda tell me all this made me look a little bit at myself. Have I ever fully appreciated the friends and family that I have? Have I ever appreciated the life that I was leading? Linda was already in her early thirties and it wasn’t until then that she, for the first time in her life, experienced the feeling of happiness. Once she did, it made her truly appreciate the things she had. How fascinating that it was this new experience in joy that opened up a new world for her.  I couldn’t even being to imagine how it would be to not be able to know what happiness was. Linda then said, “One of the reasons I’m letting you know about what I was going through is because you’re one of my close friends and we’ve known each other a long time. Also, since having this new experience, I wanted to share with friends and family how important our lives are and how grateful I am for sharing my life with them. After experiencing happiness for the first time in my life, I found that life was meant to be enjoyed. No longer was I emotionally numb and just moving through life doing what I needed to do at work and at home. Now I was actually seeing the joys and opportunities life gives us everyday.”

Wow, that message was a strong one for me. I know that life is too short and meant to be enjoyed everyday, but I did not and could not place myself into the experience that Linda was feeling now since her initial diagnosis and treatment. I guess we all really can appreciate the joys and opportunities we have in life as long as we think about how it would be without them. How it would be without a family. How it would be without friends. How it would without the ability to drive, or the ability to walk, or the ability to see or hear. These are things many of us take for granted. But every so often, it’s good to stop for a moment and reflect a little on the things we have and how our life might be different if we didn’t have them. Linda’s experience helped me to start periodically reflect on this. I now set up a little bit of time every couple of days or so (like after work or in the morning) to reflect on the things I have and the people in my life.

Have you ever reflected on the things in your life that you were grateful to have? Have you ever truly appreciated your family? Have you ever really appreciated your friends? What are some of your thoughts on the above story. Do you have any stories in your life that caused you to reflect?

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