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About this quote

What does it mean?
The issue is not the number of foolish people but the unfair distribution of fortune or opportunity.
In plain terms
It is not that there are many fools, but that good luck is not shared fairly.
What can you take from it?
Luck and opportunity are often distributed unevenly among people.

Where it applies

  • social commentary
  • economic debate
  • philosophical discussion

Putting it to work

  • analyze wealth distribution
  • question fairness

Questions to consider

  • Is success mostly luck or skill?
  • How fair is the distribution of talent?

Another view

The quote personifies lightning without defining what it represents concretely.

More from Mark Twain

  1. They did not know it was impossible, so they did it!

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  2. When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at h…

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  3. If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. (Sometimes quoted as newspapers.)

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