“The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples — that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at.”

—  Mark Twain

"My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It" http://www.mtwain.com/My_First_Lie,_And_How_I_Got_Out_Of_It/0.html, in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900)

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American author and humorist 1835–1910

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