It's paraphrased from Tom Sawyer Abroad, page 154, when Tom and Jim are talking 
about the value of learning from experience.  Tom is speaking:

"But on the other hand Uncle Abner said the person that had took a bull by the 
tail once had learnt sixty or seventy times as much as a person that hadn't, and 
said a person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was getting 
knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn't ever going to 
grow dim or doubtful."

Cheers,
Sharon



________________________________
From: Dennis Eddings <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tue, November 8, 2011 2:40:32 PM
Subject: quotation

Can anyone on the list tell me if the following quotation is really =
attributable to our guy:  "A man who carries a cat by the tail learns =
something he can learn in no other way."  Just curious.  It sounds like =
Twain, but I've never encountered it before.  It may well be as spurious =
as the golf quotation he never uttered.

dennis eddings=