Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on humanity's unique capacity for cruelty, suggesting that humans have the ability to inflict pain without necessity or survival instinct.
Mark Twain's quote examines the darker aspects of human nature, highlighting that unlike animals which may cause harm instinctively for survival, humans are capable of cruelty purely for entertainment or pleasure. This implies a moral and ethical scrutiny of human behavior, presenting a thought-provoking view on what it means to be human in the context of morality and empathy.
Themes
CrueltyHuman NaturePainMoralityEthics
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on human morality, one could use this quote to illustrate the unique ethical capacity of humans.
More from Mark Twain
All quotes βThe easy part of being an artist is figuring out the message that everyone else is ready to hear. The hard part is waiting for the proper lull to make the announcement.
Mark TwainRead
You can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.
Mark TwainRead
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
Mark TwainRead
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
Mark TwainRead
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.
Mark TwainRead
Similar quotes
I'm interested in what motivates individuals to participate in atrocious acts to support their ideological identification.
Jordan PetersonRead
Grant that we may be one flock and one shepherd.
Pope Benedict XviRead
If one does away with the fact of the Resurrection, one also does away with the Cross, for both stand and fall together, and one would then have to find a new center for the whole message of the gospel.
Hans Urs Von BalthasarRead
Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion
William ShakespeareRead
Corporations are totalitarian institutions. Board of directors at the top of managers give orders, everyone follows orders..... At the very bottom of command, if you are lucky you can rent yourself to it and get a job , and if you are sufficiently propagandized you may even buy some of the junk they produce and so on.
Noam ChomskyRead
Night, in which everything was lost, went reaching out, beyond stars and sun. Stars and sun, a few bright grains, went spiraling round for terror, and holding each other in embrace, there in a darkness that outpassed them all, and left them tiny and daunted. So much, and himself, infinitesimal, at the core of nothingness, and yet not nothing.
D. H. LawrenceRead