24 Samuel Langhorne Clemens Quotes on Society

Samuel Langhorne Clemens quotes on society

11. A crowded police docket is the surest of all signs that trade is brisk and money plenty.

15. The funniest things are the forbidden.

34. The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples - that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at.

36. ...[H]eaven for climate, Hell for society.

46. Customs do not concern themselves with right or wrong or reason. But they have to be obeyed; one reasons all around them until he is tired, but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden.

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

54. We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking. And out of it we get an aggregation which we consider a boon. Its name is public opinion. It is held in reverence. Some think it the voice of God.

55. The lack of money is the root of all evil.

56. Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

75. She makes me get up just at the same time every morning; she makes me wash, they comb me all to thunder; she won't let me sleep in the woodshed; I got to wear them blamed clothes that just smothers me, Tom; they don't seem to let any air git through 'em, somehow; and they're so rotten nice that I can't set down, nor lay down, nor roll around anywher's; I hain't slid on a cellar-door for - well, it 'pears to be years; I got to go to church and sweat and sweat - I hate them ornery sermons! I can't ketch a fly in there, I can't chaw. I got to wear shoes all Sunday. The widder eats by a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell - everything's so awful reg'lar a body can't stand it.

84. There warn't anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't go to church only when they've got to; but a hog is different.

87. H'aint we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?

109. There has never been a just one, never an honorable one -- on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful -- as usual -- will shout for the war. The pulpit will -- warily and cautiously -- object -- at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, 'It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.' Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers -- as earlier -- but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation -- pulpit and all -- will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

113. Of all the creatures that were made he [man] is the most detestable. Of the entire brood he is the only one - the solitary one - that possesses malice. That is the basest of all instincts, passions, vices - the most hateful...He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain...Also - in all the list he is the only creature that has a nasty mind.

123. In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

125. Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship God, & over these ideals they dispute & cannot unite - but they all worship money.

127. Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.

153. A lie can make it half way around the world before the truth has time to put its boots on. (This has also been attributed to Winston Churchill.)

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.

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

193. The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.

202. The minority is always in the right. The majority is always in the wrong.

208. Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting over.