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As an old man, Mark Twain visited his boyhood home in Hannibal, Mo., where he first saw the Mississippi steamboats he later piloted and wrote about, preferably lying in bed.
Fifty years ago, America lost its greatest humorist, but his writings will endure always, as you'll see in this sampling of
!(J?f'i HERE ARE COUNTU;ss wonderful quotations
1 1 in the works of Mark Twain, sometimes
serious, sometimes funny, and often a
heavenly mixture of both. Everyone knows this,
and everyone has his favorites. I have selected a
number that have particularly refreshed me, or
have made me pause and think; most of them
have made me grin, and some have made me
guffaw. It is remarkable what a store of wisdom
' and humor this one man had in him, and what
a marvelously fresh sense of the English language
he retained until the very day of his death 50
years ago, on April 21, 1910.
On Himself
'The proverb says that Providence protects
children and idiots. This is really true. I know
it because I have tested it."
"In my early manhood and in middle life, I
used to vex myself with reforms every now and
then. And I never had occasion to regret these
divergencies for, whether the resulting depriva
tions were long or short, the rewarding pleasure
which I got out of the vice when I returned to it
always paid me for all that it cost."
"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. I consider
them unwise, and I know they are dangerous.
Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me now
I would go to that man and take him kindly and
forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet
retired spot and kill him."
"Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good
deal of information in the book. I regret this very
much; but really it could not be helped: informa
tion appears to stew out of me naturally, like the
precious ottar of roses out of the otter. Some
times it has seemed to me that I would give worlds
if I could retain my facts; but it cannot be. The
more I calk up the sources, and the tighter I get,
the more I leak wisdom."
On the Nature of Man
"I believe that our Heavenly Father invented
man because he was disappointed in the monkey.
I believe that whenever a human being, of even
the highest intelligence and culture, delivers an
opinion upon a matter apart from his particular
and especial line of interest, training, and expe
rience, it will always be an opinion of so foolish
and so valueless a sort that it can be depended
upon to suggest to our Heavenly Father that the
human being is another disappointment and that
he is no considerable improvement upon the
monkey."
"If I had the remaking of man, he wouldn't
have any conscience. It is one of the most dis
agreeable things connected with a person; and
although it certainly does a great deal of good, it
cannot be said to pay, in the long run; it would
be much better to have less good and more
comfort. Still, this is only my opinion, and I am
only one man; others, with less experience, may
think differently. They have a right to their view.
I only stand to this: I have noticed my conscience
for many years, and I know it is more trouble
and bother to me than anything else I started
with."
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him
prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the prin
cipal difference between a dog and a man."
"Adam was but human this explains it all. He
did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he
wanted it only because it was forbidden. The
mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then
he would have eaten the serpent."
"Everything human is pathetic. The secret
source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There
is no humor in heaven."
"Man is the only animal that blushes. Or
needs to."
On Yice and Yirtue
"Once there was a good little boy by the name
of Jacob Blivens. He always obeyed his parents,
no matter how absurd and unreasonable their
demands were; and he always learned his book,
and never was late at Sabbath school. He would
not play hookey, even when his sober judgment
told him it was. the most profitable thing he could
do. None of the other boys could ever make that
boy out, he acted so strangely."
"Nothing so needs reforming as other people's
habits."
"To be good is noble; but to show others how
to be good is nobler and no trouble."
"Few things are harder to put up with than
the annoyance of a good example."
"It seems a pity that the world should throw
away so many good things merely because they
are unwholesome. I doubt if God has given us
any refreshment which, taken in moderation, is
unwholesome, except microbes. Yet there are
people who strictly deprive themselves of each
and every eatable, drinkable, and smokable which
has in any way acquired a shady reputation.
They pay this price for health. And health is
all they get for it. How strange it is! It is like
paying out your whole fortune for a cow that
has gone dry."
On Politics
and Government
"An earthly despotism would be the absolutely
perfect earthly government, if the conditions were
the same, namely, the despot the perfectest indi
vidual of the human race, and his lease of life
perpetual. But as a perishable perfect man must
die and leave his despotism in the hands of an
imperfect successor, an earthly despotism is not
merely a bad form of government, it is the worst
form that is possible."
"It is by the goodness of God that in our coun
try we have those three unspeakably precious
things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience,
and the prudence never to practice either of them."
"It could probably be shown by figures that
there is no distinctly native American criminal
class except Congress."
"In statesmanship, get the formalities right,
never mind about the moralities."
Family Weekly, April 17. I960
Huck Finn's house in Hannibal. Twain shared fame with his wife and daughter.
By CHARLES NEIDER
Editor of "The Autobiography of Mark Twain"
Cliarles Neider, who made these selections
for family Weekly, is a novelist and Mark
Twain authority. He compiled and edited
Twain's autobiographical writings or the
recently published Harper & Brothers book,
"The Autobiography of Mark Twain." His
latest novel, "The Authentic Death of Hendry
Jones," is from the same publisher.
his wit and wisdom
"A man is a man, at bottom.
Whole ages of abuse and oppression
cannot crush the manhood clear
out of him. Whoever thinks it a
mistake is himself mistaken. Yes,
there is plenty good enough ma
terial for a republic in the most
degraded people that ever existed
even the Russians; plenty of
manhood in them even in the
Germans if one could but force
it out of its timid and suspicious
privacy, to overthrow and trample
in the mud any throne that ever
was set up and any nobility that
ever supported it."
On Nature
"We know all about the habits
of the ant, we know all about the
habits of the bee, but we know
nothing at all about the habits of
the oyster. It seems almost certain
that we have been choosing the
wrong time for studying the oyster."
"Training is everything. The
peach was once a bitter almond;
cauliflower is nothing but cabbage
with a college education."
"One of the striking differences
between a cat and a lie is that a
cat has only nine lives."
"Consider well the proportions of
things. It is better to be a young
June-bug than an old bird of para
dise." Observations
and Advice
. "It takes your enemy and your
friend, working together, to hurt
you to the heart; the one to slander -you
and the other to get the news
to you."
"Noise proves nothing. Often a
hen who has merely laid an egg
cackles as if she had laid an as
teroid." "It were not best that we should
all think alike; it is difference of
opinion that makes horse-races."
"Wrinkles should merely indicate
where smiles have been."
"There are two times in a man's
life when he should not speculate:
when he can't afford it, and when
he can."
"When angry, count four; when
very angry, swear."
"Even popularity can be over
done. In Rome, at first you are full
of regrets that Michelangelo died;
but by and by you only regret that
you didn't see him do it."
"My father was a St. Bernard,
my mother was a collie, but I am
a Presbyterian."
"She was not quite' what you
would call refined. She was not
quite what you would call unre
fined. She was the kind of person
that keeps a parrot"
(The above quotations are from the
following works of Mark Twain: "A
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's
Court," "Pudd'nhead Wilson," "fol
lowing the Equator," and "Roughing
It"; also, "The Complete Short Sto
ries of Mark Twain" and "The Auto
biography of Mark Twain"; all copy
right by Harper A Brothers. Photos
courtesy NBC's "Life and Times of
Mark Twain." )
Family Weekly. April 17, I960
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