On 4 Nov 2004 at 9:47, Kevin. Mac Donnell wrote:

> Finally, despite all of the fragments with Johnson provenances that
> I've seen, I have never seen an original ms of one of maxims in MORE
MAXIMS.
> Nor am I aware of any of those maxims that appear elsewhere in Twain's
> writings, but I've never researched this.

I can identify alternate sources for some of the maxims in More
Maxims.  It appears that they were drawn from multiple notebooks,
with at least a couple more from widely available texts.

Both of these are in Notebook #45, 1902 (MTP):

"The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to
your satisfaction."

"You can straighten a worm, but the crook is in him and only waiting."

This is from the introduction to the maxims in Following the Equator:

"To be good is noble, but to show others how to be good is nobler,
and no trouble."

This is from the 70th Birtday speech:

"We can't reach old age by another man's road. My habits protect my
life but they would assassinate you."

These appears in Paine's edition of the Notebooks (published 8 years
after More Maxims):

"There are many scapegoats for our blunders, but the most popular
one is Providence."

"It is not best to use our morals weekdays, it gets them out of repair
for Sunday."

(Paine's version reads, "It is not best that we use our morals week
days....")

"Circumstances make man, not man circumstances."

"What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The
taxidermist takes only your skin."

"There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old
optimist."

"Geological time is not money."

"All schools, all colleges, have two great functions; to confer, and to
conceal, valuable knowledge. The theological knowledge which they
conceal cannot justly be regarded as less valuable than that which
they reveal. That is, when a man is buying a basket of strawberries it
can profit him to know that the bottom half of it is rotten."

Jim Zwick