37 Samuel Langhorne Clemens Quotes on Culture

Samuel Langhorne Clemens quotes on culture

1. Following the Equator (1897)

5. I'll risk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county.

9. Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience - 4000 critics.

10. All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the 'elect' have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so 'slow,' so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle - keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason.

15. The funniest things are the forbidden.

17. Among the three or four million cradles now rocking in the land are some which this nation would preserve for ages as sacred things, if we could know which ones they are.

24. He [George Washington Cable] has taught me to abhor and detest the Sabbath day and hunt up new and troublesome ways to dishonor it.

29. [Citing a familiar 'American joke':] In Boston they ask, How much does he know? In New York, How much is he worth? In Philadelphia, Who were his parents?

33. [A] classic - something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

47. Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.

53. You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is.

60. I do not take any credit to my better-balanced head because I never went crazy on Presbyterianism. We go too slow for that. You never see us ranting and shouting and tearing up the ground, You never heard of a Presbyterian going crazy on religion. Notice us, and you will see how we do. We get up of a Sunday morning and put on the best harness we have got and trip cheerfully down town; we subside into solemnity and enter the church; we stand up and duck our heads and bear down on a hymn book propped on the pew in front when the minister prays; we stand up again while our hired choir are singing, and look in the hymn book and check off the verses to see that they don't shirk any of the stanzas; we sit silent and grave while the minister is preaching, and count the waterfalls and bonnets furtively, and catch flies; we grab our hats and bonnets when the benediction is begun; when it is finished, we shove, so to speak. No frenzy, no fanaticism --no skirmishing; everything perfectly serene. You never see any of us Presbyterians getting in a sweat about religion and trying to massacre the neighbors. Let us all be content with the tried and safe old regular religions, and take no chances on wildcat.

63. They spell it 'Vinci' and pronounce it 'Vinchy'. Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.

64. I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo - that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture - great in every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast - for luncheon - for dinner - for tea - for supper - for between meals. I like a change, occasionally.

65. Enough, enough, enough! Say no more! Lump the whole thing! say that the Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo!

66. Guides cannot master the subtleties of the American joke.

67. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.

68. Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

93. Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.

96. To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is correct.

98. I have no special regard for Satan; but, I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English, it is un-American; it is French.

100. A Jewish beggar is not impossible, perhaps; such a thing may exist, but there are few men that can say they have seen that spectacle.

102. If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvellous fight in the world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?

114. The trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades.

115. France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.

118. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.

120. Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

121. Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them.

132. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India.

145. All you have to fear is your mother's cooking.

155. Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.

168. France is miserable because it is filled with Frenchmen, and Frenchmen are miserable because they live in France.

169. I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it.

176. I've never killed a man, but I've read many an obituary with a great deal of satisfaction.

187. The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.

190. There is nothing lower than the human race except the French.

200. Wagner's music is better than it sounds.