My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one’s country, not to its institutions or its officeholders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, […]
Mark Twain Quotes
To decide against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let man label you as they may.
Whatever you say, say it with conviction.
When a man is known to have no settled convictions of his own he can’t convict other people.
War talk by men who have been in a war is always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon is likely to be dull.
He had a good memory, and a tongue tied in the middle. This a combination which gives immortality to conversation.
Probably there is nothing in the world so suggestive of serene contentment and perfect bliss as the spectacle of a calf chewing a dishrag, but the nearest approach to it is your reedy tenor, standing apart, in sickly attitude, with head thrown back and eyes uplifted to the moon, piping his distressing solo.
Was it my conspicuousness that distressed me? Not at all. It was merely that I was not beautifully conspicuous but uglily conspicuous – it makes all the difference in the world.
A conspiracy is nothing but a secret agreement of a number of men for the pursuance of policies which they dare not admit in public.
There are those who would misteach us that to stick in a rut is consistency- and a virtue; and that to climb out of the rut is inconsistency- and a vice.
