Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Twain jokes that once you have facts, you can manipulate them to fit any narrative.
- In plain terms
- Facts can be twisted after you have them to support any view.
- What can you take from it?
- Verify sources and watch for data manipulation.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How can you ensure facts aren't distorted?
Another view
Not all distortion is intentional or malicious.
More from Mark Twain
I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is I can't find anybody who can tell me what they want.
Permalink to quote #140 In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination.
Permalink to quote #142 If you would have your fiction live forever, you must neither overtly preach nor overtly teach; but you must covertly preach and covertly teach.
Permalink to quote #139
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