“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so”
-Mark Twain
The more tenaciously a thought is held, the more irrational it becomes. But it ain’t necessarily so.
“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, most of them never happened.”
– Mark Twain
Beware the boogie man in the dark corner, for he just may not exist.
“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”
-Mark Twain
A man that can walk through life unburdened by the vicissitudes of others, accept his own shortcomings, and strive always to improve himself, warts and all, is an easy person to be around – for himself and others.
“A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.”
-Mark Twain
We are all sinners, liars, and cheats. Admitting it is the only hope we have that we’ll not always be sinners, liars, and cheats.
“I would rather have my ignorance than another man’s knowledge, because I have got so much more of it.”
-Mark Twain
All we can be sure of is our own ignorance – knowing that we don’t know. An abundance of known ignorance is better than a paucity of knowledge.
“It is a pathetic thought. We struggle, we rise, we tower in the zenith a brief and gorgeous moment, with the adoring eyes of the nations upon us, then the lights go out, oblivion closes around us, our glory fades and vanishes, a few generations drift by, and naught remains but a mystery and a name.”
-Mark Twain
What does it really mean, when we pass into inevitable oblivion, to possess fame or claim glory? Fame vanishes and glory dies in the press of our own ego.
It is nothing but what we leave behind that is important in the end. Best to consider what that might be while it is still in our power, lest we be caught with nothing at all to show for it
“The humorist who invented trial by jury played a colossal practical joke upon the world, but since we have the system we ought to try and respect it. A thing which is not thoroughly easy to do, when we reflect that by command of the law a criminal juror must be an intellectual vacuum, attached to a melting heart and perfectly macaronian bowels of compassion.”
-Mark Twain, New York Tribune, March 1873
That it must be some enormous practical joke is never more obvious than for the juror, sitting amongst eleven strangers – suddenly compatriots in judgement – charged with directing how a blindfolded Lady Justice is to play her hand. It gives reason to doubt that justice is even possible.
But it is in the deliberation room where the inadequacy of trial by jury really sinks in. Just as it also dawns that it is best means of justice yet devised – no matter how flawed.
“The thug is aware that loudness convinces sixty persons where reasoning convinces but one.”
-Mark Twain
But those sixty people are convinced of an argument upon which there is no basis in reason – the thug makes a fool of his followers and a mockery of rational thought.
“I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices or caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being–that is enough for me; he can’t be any worse.”
-Mark Twain
The point isn’t if you’re white, black, a jew, muslim, easterner, westerner, northerner, southerner, atheist, theist, liberal, or conservative. You’re human, and worthy of suspicion. I’m human too.
“Human pride is not worth while; there is always something lying in wait to take the wind out of it”
-Mark Twain, Following the Equator
Pride is a tricky thing. It can be a fine thing, too, like pride for work, family, community, and the accomplishments of others.
But pride only for the sake of itself, without humility, is sure to be humiliated. Best to carry the humility with you from the start.