Knighterrantry is a most chuckleheaded trade, and it is tedious hard work, too, but I begin to see that there is money in it, after all, if you have luck. Not that I would ever engage in it, as a business, for I wouldn't. No sound and legitimate business can be established on a basis of speculation. A successful whirl in the knighterrantry line--now what is it when you blow away the nonsense and come down to the cold facts? It's just a corner in pork, that's all.
Mark TwainIt is impossible that a genius - at least a literary genius - can ever be discovered by his intimates; they are so close to him that he is out of focus to them and they can't get at his proportions; they can't perceive that there is any considerable difference between his bulk and their own.
Mark TwainThere is no use in your walking five miles to fish when you can depend on being just as unsuccessful near home.
Mark TwainWhen we do not know a person - and also when we do - we have to judge his size by the size and nature of his achievements, as compared with the achievements of others in his special line of business - there is no other way.
Mark Twain