Society and the World

It was a close place. I took it up, and held itin my hand. I was trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held itin my hand. I was trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up.

I thought a minute, and says to myself, holdon,—s’pose you’d a done right and give Jim up; would you felt better than what you do now?No, says I, I’d feel bad—I’d feel just the sameway I do now. Well, then, says I, what’s the use you learning to do right, when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?

What chance has the ignorant, uncultivated liar against the educated expert? What chance have I . . . against a lawyer?

What chance has the ignorant, uncultivated liar against the educated expert? What chance have I . . . against a lawyer?

All the modern inconveniences.

We have not the reverent feeling for therainbow that a savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter.

Anywhere is better than Paris. Paris the cold, Paris the drizzly, Paris the rainy, Paris theDamnable. More than a hundred years ago, somebody asked Quin, “Did you ever see such a winter in all your life before?” “Yes,” said he, “last summer.” I judge he spent his summer in Paris.

A pretty air in an opera is prettier there than it could be anywhere else, I suppose, just as anhonest man in politics shines more than hewould elsewhere.

He [Tom Sawyer] had discovered a great law ofhuman action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great andwise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do andthat Play consists of whatever a body is notobliged to do.

He [Tom Sawyer] had discovered a great law ofhuman action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great andwise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do andthat Play consists of whatever a body is notobliged to do.

The widder eats by a bell; she goes to bed by abell; she gits up by a bell—everything’s so awful reg’lar a body can’t stand it.

The chances are that a man cannot get into congress now without resorting to arts and means that should render him unfit to gothere.

The chances are that a man cannot get into congress now without resorting to arts and means that should render him unfit to gothere.

To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman.

To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman.

The jury system puts a ban upon intelligenceand honesty, and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity, and perjury.

The jury system puts a ban upon intelligenceand honesty, and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity, and perjury.

[ On women in the United States :] They live in the midst of a country where there is no end to the laws and no beginning to the execution of them.

[ On women in the United States :] They live in the midst of a country where there is no end to the laws and no beginning to the execution of them.

When the peremptory challenges wereall exhausted, a jury of twelve men wereimpaneled—a jury who swore that they hadneither heard, read, talked about, nor expressedan opinion concerning a murder which thevery cattle in the corrals, the Indians in thesage-brush, and the stones in the street werecognizant of!

When the peremptory challenges wereall exhausted, a jury of twelve men wereimpaneled—a jury who swore that they hadneither heard, read, talked about, nor expressedan opinion concerning a murder which thevery cattle in the corrals, the Indians in thesage-brush, and the stones in the street werecognizant of!

[ Deleted dedication of Twain’s book RoughingIt:] To the Late Cain, This Book is Dedicated, Not on account of respect for his memory, for it merits little respect; not on accountof sympathy with him, for his bloody deedplaced him without the pale of sympathy, strictly speaking; but out of a mere humancommiseration for him in that it was hismisfortune to live in a dark age that knew notthe beneficent Insanity Plea.

I have often noticed that you shun exertion.There comes the difference between us. I courtexertion. I love work. Why, sir, when I have apiece of work to perform, I go away to myself, sit down in the shade, and muse over thecoming enjoyment.