Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
There is a great difference between feeding parties to wild beasts and stirring up their finer feelings in an inquisition. One is the system of degraded barbarians, the other of enlightened civilized people.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote contrasts barbaric treatment of others with the enlightened appeal to their better qualities.
Mark Twain's quote highlights the significant moral difference between brutal acts of violence and oppression compared to a more civilized approach that seeks to engage the nobler aspects of human nature. He critiques the barbarism of treating others inhumanely, suggesting that true civilization lies in fostering compassion and understanding rather than resorting to cruelty.
Themes
BarbarismCivilizationHumanityCompassionMorality
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about social justice, one might refer to this quote to emphasize the importance of humane treatment.
More from Mark Twain
All quotes →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.
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
We live on the brink of disaster because we do not know how to let life alone. We do not respect the living and fruitful contradictions and paradoxes of which true life is full.
Thomas MertonRead
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there.
RumiRead
Women's virtue is frequently nothing but a regard to their own quiet and a tenderness for their reputation.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
As he was valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him.
William ShakespeareRead
There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.
James JoyceRead
The new American finds his challenge and his love in the traffic-choked streets, skies nested in smog, choking with the acids of industry, the screech of rubber and houses leashed in against one another while the town lets wither a time and die.
John SteinbeckRead