Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its one sure defense.
Mark Twain Quotes
When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.
Courtship lifts a young fellow far and away above his common earthly self and by an impulse natural to those lofty regions he puts on his halo and his heavenly war paint and plays archangel as if he were born to it. He is working a deception, but is not aware of it.
The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.
The trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades.
One mustn’t criticize other people on grounds where he can’t stand perpendicular himself.
The critic’s symbol should be the tumble-bug: he deposits his egg in somebody else’s dung, otherwise he could not hatch it.
Criticism is a queer thing. If I print “She was stark naked” – and then proceed to describe her person in detail, what critic would not howl? Who would venture to leave the book on a parlor table? But the artist does this and all ages gather and look and talk and point.
The kingly office is entitled to no respect. It was originally procured by the highwayman’s methods; it remains a perpetuated crime, can never be anything but the symbol of a crime. It is no more entitled to respect than is the flag of a pirate.
If I had been helping the Almighty when he created man, I would have had him begin at the other end, and start human beings with old age. How much better to start old and have all the bitterness and blindness of age in the beginning!
