The Wit & Wisdom of…. [installment #1, 11/05/07]
“To be good is to be noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.”
Mark Twain, Following the Equator
“Morals consist of political morals, commercial morals, ecclesiastical morals, and morals.”
Mark Twain, More Maxims of Mark
“Virtue never has been as respectable as money.”
Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad
“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”
Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson
[umm… well then, I shall endeavor to remember that and reform myself!?]
“I was born modest; not all over, but in spots.”
Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
“Adam was the author of sin, and I sure wish he had taken out an international copyright on it.”
Mark Twain, Notebook
[Adam] did not want the apple for the apple’s sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.
Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson
“There are several good protections against temptations but the surest is cowardice.”
Mark Twain, Following the Equator
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson
It is better to deserve honors and not have them, than to have them and not deserve them.
Notebook
“It is not best that we should all think alike, it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.”
Pudd’nhead Wilson
“Loyalty to petrified opinioins never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.”
“on consistency”
[I’ll say! Now those last two are sorely needed in our times, today! michael guy]
“The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.”
Following the Equator
[! I must admit I agree. I have been doing much humoring of myself in these last few years! If I was so joyful, I’m sure I would not need such self-entertainment!]
“Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.”
Following the Equator
[Yes, often insincerity wears fancy clothes and perfumes, yet nowadays, it often comes dressed as they please. Today, nothing breeds it like reality shows and polls that rate our value by our acquisition of cash worth]
[One from Michael Guy, whoever he is…]
“Life is a movie baby, (at which we are often at odds with the Scriptwriter)… and don’t you forget it!”
Michael Guy, from “MovieMaker” P. ca. 1988
[and finally:]
“Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”
Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson
[!... and that, my friends is a challenge to under-take(?!)]
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I – tune in for installment #2 next week with some other of my favorite writers! Thanks for reading, michael…
Ron
God bless you. Kathy
Walt