Andrew Carnegie. The idea was to put all your eggs
in one basket--and then--watch that basket! His anti-Puritanical
convictions find concrete expression in his assertion that few things
are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. Truly
classic, in usage if not in form, is his happy saying that faith is
believing what you know ain't so. His definition of a classic as a book
which people praise but don't read, is as frequently heard as are
Biblical and Shakespearian tags.
Mr. Clemens once told me that he had composed between two and three
hundred maxims during his life. Many of them, especially those from the
old and new calendars of Pudd'nhead Wilson, bear the individual and
peculiar stamp of Mark Twain's phraseology and outlook upon life
--quaint, genial, and shrewd. In pursuance of his deep-rooted belief in
the omnipotent power of training, he remarked that the peach was once a
bitter almond, the cauliflower nothing but cabbage with a college
education.
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