Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
Our best built certainties are but sand-houses and subject to damage from any wind of doubt that blows
Interpretation
Our most confident beliefs can still be fragile and easily shaken by doubt.
This quote by Mark Twain suggests that despite our strong convictions and certainties, they are ultimately vulnerable to challenges and uncertainties. Just as sandcastles are easily displaced by the wind, our beliefs can be disrupted by moments of doubt, reminding us to approach our certainties with humility and an awareness of their fragility.
In practice
In a speech about embracing uncertainty in life.
Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
The 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.
You can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
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.
Sentimentalism is the working off on yourself of feelings you haven't really got.
If nationalism makes us poor, weak, and morally insecure, how can it claim to be patriotic? I maintain that nationalists are unpatriotic.
Often, warriors find their lives meaningless.
I believe that Gandhiβs views were the most enlightened of all the political men of our time.
The suburbs dream of violence.
Their sighing, canting, grace-proud faces, their three-mile prayers, and half-mile graces.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.