Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the value of free speech and conscience while humorously critiquing the tendency to avoid using them.
Mark Twain's quote reflects on the vital freedoms of speech and conscience, suggesting they are invaluable gifts from God. However, he presents a satirical view that people often exercise great caution in exercising these freedoms, implying that many choose not to fully embrace such liberties, thus underscoring a tension between idealism and reality in society.
In practice
This quote can be a great lead-in for a discussion on the importance of free speech at a debate.
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.
Freedom and slavery are mental states.
I wanted pure love: foolishness; to love one another is to hate a common enemy: I will thus espouse your hatred. I wanted Good: nonsense; on this earth and in these times, Good and Bad are inseparable: I accept to be evil in order to become good.
We do not always proclaim loudly the most important thing we have to say. Nor do we always privately share it with those closest to us, our intimate friends, those who have been most devotedly ready to receive our confession.
Man is not an omipotent master of the universe, allowed to do with impunity whatever he thinks, or whatever suits him at the moment. The world we live in is made of an immensely complex and mysterious tissue about which we know very little and which we must treat with utmost humility.
If the work of our sanctification presents us with difficulties that appear insurmountable, it is because we do not look at it in the right way. In reality, holiness consists in one thing alone, namely, fidelity to God's plan. And this fidelity is equally within everyone's capacity in both its active and passive exercise.
For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.