Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world and it's efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read-
Interpretation
The quote humorously critiques the challenges of jury selection in a legal system.
Mark Twain's quote highlights the irony and absurdity of the jury system in which a group of individuals is expected to make important decisions despite the inherent difficulties in finding uninformed and illiterate jurors. It reflects on the complexities of justice and sheds light on the flawed human elements in the legal process, using humor to convey a deeper message about societal expectations and the nature of the law.
In practice
During a discussion about the legal system, one might quote Twain to lighten the mood and provoke thought.
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.
The other night I ate at a real nice family restaurant. Every table had an argument going.
You don’t want a general houseworker, do you? Or a traveling companion, quiet, refined, speaks fluent French entirely in the present tense? Or an assistant billiard-maker? Or a private librarian? Or a lady car-washer? Because if you do, I should appreciate your giving me a trial at the job. Any minute now, I am going to become one of the Great Unemployed. I am about to leave literature flat on its face. I don’t want to review books any more. It cuts in too much on my reading.
I go to dance clubs...about once a year just to justify the other 364 days I spend in my apartment going 'God, what idiots!'
I like to watch the news, because I don't like people very much and when you watch the news... if you ever had an idea that people were really terrible, you could watch the news and know that you're right.
I realized that comedians of the day were operating on jokes and punch lines. The moment you say the punch line, the audience either laughs sincerely or they laugh automatically or they don't laugh. The thing that bothered me was that automatic laugh. I said, that's not real laughter.
If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.
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