A couple from Mr. Twain

[TimMTP]

As a dog lover, I've always like this one:

“The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man's”

Now for one that's a little bit closer to shooting, especially if you want to get better:

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”

[Standby!]

I have a favorite by Mr. Clemens as well.

Goes like this..replace the word tobacco/cigar with brand x pistols, cars, anything works here.

As concerns tobacco, there are many superstitions. And the

chiefest is this--that there is a STANDARD governing the matter,

whereas there is nothing of the kind. Each man's own preference

is the only standard for him, the only one which he can accept,

the only one which can command him. A congress of all the

tobacco-lovers in the world could not elect a standard which

would be binding upon you or me, or would even much influence us.

The next superstition is that a man has a standard of his own.

He hasn't. He thinks he has, but he hasn't. He thinks he can

tell what he regards as a good cigar from what he regards as a

bad one--but he can't. He goes by the brand, yet imagines he goes

by the flavor. One may palm off the worst counterfeit upon him;

if it bears his brand he will smoke it contentedly and never suspect.

Children of twenty-five, who have seven years experience,

try to tell me what is a good cigar and what isn't.

Me, who never learned to smoke, but always smoked;

me, who came into the world asking for a light.

No one can tell me what is a good cigar--for me. I am the

only judge. People who claim to know say that I smoke the worst

cigars in the world. They bring their own cigars when they come

to my house. They betray an unmanly terror when I offer them

a cigar; they tell lies and hurry away to meet engagements

which they have not made when they are threatened with the

hospitalities of my box. Now then, observe what superstition,

assisted by a man's reputation, can do.

I was to have twelve personal friends to supper one night. One

of them was as notorious for costly and elegant cigars as I was

for cheap and devilish ones. I called at his house and when no

one was looking borrowed a double handful of his very choicest;

cigars which cost him forty cents apiece and bore red-and-gold

labels in sign of their nobility.

I removed the labels and put the cigars into a box with my

favorite brand on it--a brand which those people all

knew, and which cowed them as men are cowed by an epidemic. They

took these cigars when offered at the end of the supper, and lit

them and sternly struggled with them--in dreary silence, for

hilarity died when the fell brand came into view and started

around--but their fortitude held for a short time only; then they

made excuses and filed out, treading on one anothers heels with

indecent eagerness; and in the morning when I went out to observe

results the cigars lay all between the front door and the gate.

All except one--that one lay in the plate of the man from whom I

had cabbaged the lot. One or two whiffs was all he could stand.

He told me afterward that some day I would get shot for giving

people that kind of cigars to smoke.

[Duane Thomas]

Love the cigar story.