Talk:Mark Twain
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I removed one quote from this page because it appeared here: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/twain.htm
--Furrykef 02:53, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Another Twainism
One fairly attributed to Twain is :- "Some German words are so long that they have a perspective." It seems to be from Twain's 1880 book "A Tramp Abroad" Appendix D entitled "1 July - The Awful German Language"
- He paid tribute this in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, where the "magic words" are actually very long German compound words, spanning the entire width of the page, and, for proper effect, set in Gothic script. --QuicksilverT @ 22:54, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Some new edits
I'm new here, but I changed some stuff around on the page anyway to source some of the quotes and move one to the incorrectly attributed section. Mark Twain is one of the most widely misquoted authors around. People attribute everything to him. --Revcbl 17:24, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] ... remove all doubt
Can we get a better referral on the "better to be thought a fool ..." ? There is one similiar from Confucius "Listen widely to remove your doubts and be careful when speaking about the rest and your mistakes will be few. See much and get rid of what is dangerous and be careful in acting on the rest and your causes for regret will be few. Speaking without fault, acting without causing regret: 'upgrading' consists in this."
what about lincoln or emerson? http://www.princeton.edu/~ferguson/adw/humor/quotes.shtml
- I moved it to "Incorrectly attributed". —207.237.32.233 23:04, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Lazarus' Epithaph
Does anyone have the text of the thing Twain wrote for Emperor Norton's dog Lazarus?
[edit] End of the world?
There is a quote often attributed to Twain that says something like, "If I knew the world was coming to an end, I would go to Cincinnati because everything happens ten years later in Cincinnati." Or something like that. Does anyone know if there is anything to actually back up this attribution? If not I suppose it could be added into the attributed section. Any thoughts? -Thebdj 05:04, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
It's more often attributed to Will Rogers, which seems more plausible to me: "If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later." --Dsmccoy 04:24, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
As I recall, it's in "Life on the Mississippi," but I don't have a copy handy, so I can't immediately verify that. He was poking fun at Cincinnatians for wearing an outmoded style of boots and goatees. He took particular glee from the goatees.
^ I googled up an online copy of Life on the Mississippi and searched for it, but haven't found anything. I've tried rewording it and whatnot. Still can't find it though.
[edit] The Mysterious Stranger
What's the point of pastingentire pages wholesale from the Gutenberg Project? To be effective, most quotes consist of only an isolated sentence or two. Unless someone can identify some pithy thoughts in this work and break them out as individual sentences, I think this entire section should be excised. —QuicksilverT @ 22:54, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Truth quote
I'm pretty sure it was from THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN: -> Nothing found in the full text online...
"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."
I love the double entendre; not only do you not have to cover your lies if you're honest, but on a deeper level, there's the implication that you don't have to remember things if you don't want to, for example, when the sheriff asks you, "Now Huckleberry, who stole that gold?", you can tell him that you don't know and even if you do know, you can get away with it.
[edit] Weather
The quote, "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it", should not be listed. Even if we had absolute proof that Charles Dudley Warner was refering to Mark Twain when he attributed a saying about weather to "A well known American writer", we don't know exactly what Mark Twain said. You can't reword the sentence to change the tense. A quote is EXACTLY what the person said word for word; there is no written record of this for Mark Twain.
[edit] Proper sources
Many of the supposedly sourced quotes in this article don't actually provide a source that can be checked. The purpose of Citing sources is to make it reasonably easy for readers to verify quotes to improve the accuracy of Wikiquote, just as it is with Wikipedia. To that end, a source like that currently given for Twain's infamous "reports of my death" quote:
- Cable from London to the Associated Press (1897)
is of little use. What is needed is a publication or other reliable source that cites (or even reprints) this cable. Similarly, anything from Twain's letters should have a citation of a publication that actually includes his letters, preferably with the page number, book edition, and other relevant information to identify the specific printing. I ask editors of this article to help gather this information. I'd be happy to give some pointers about finding it, and how to format it when you have it — just drop me a note on my talk page. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:05, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Fake or not fake
I was presented with this Twainism at work today:
"Synergy - the bonus that is achieved when things work together harmoniously"
It doesn't feel like Twain to me. It feels like an anonymous corporate PR machine cog made it up and just said Twain said it. BUT! I can't prove that. I yield to the collective wiki wisdom to aid me in my quest to verify this quote as real, fake, or triple fake. Please help!
Will check back regularly logged in, appreciate any feedback possible. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 171.161.160.10 (talk • contribs) 20:50, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
It's much easier to prove someone did say something than it is to prove they never said it, but I would be extremely suspicious of that quote. Looking at the entry for the word "synergy" in the OED, the 19th century citations are all in scientific journals. Twain was known for using common American speech, which didn't (and still doesn't) include the word "synergy". That said, this so-called quote is all over the web now. --Dsmccoy 04:42, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Quote from Twain's mother
I'm new here, also. I'm trying to find a quote that is attributed to Mark Twain's mohter. She made some valid comments on keeping animals penned up or in captivity. Can anyone help me with this quote? Thanks for your help. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Infoplace (talk • contribs) 08:05, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
- Not much to go on here. It might help to know that Twain's mother's name was Jane Lampton Clemens (misspelled "Lambton" in some references, apparently). I didn't find anything specific about Jane and animals, other than Samuel Clemens inherited from her a "tenderness toward all animals", which was part of her passionate support for the underdog (no pun intended).
- There is a multi-volume set titled Mark Twain's Letters that includes correspondence with Twain's mother, but I'm not sure if it includes her letters to him (which would presumably include such a quote). The Singular Mark Twain, by Fred Kaplan, has some substantive info about her in chapter 1 at least, so that's another possibility. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 10:02, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Porcine music lessons
Did Twain really say, "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes time and annoys the pig"? - and if so, where and when? I have seen that quote or variants of it attributed to a lot of different people. There's no doubt that a character in a Heinlein book said it. Was it not original there?
—Wasn't it, "Never wrestle with a pig: you get dirty and the pig enjoys it?" Monado 03:34, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
If i believe correctly "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes time and annoys the pig" is from "The Adventures of Mark Twain" the 1985 movie.
[edit] Storm of thoughts
I've seen this attributed to Twain: "Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one's head." Does anyone know if it's really his and, if so, where it comes from in his works? Thanks, Monado 03:29, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] On going to hell
Can someone confirm if Twain said something along these lines: "All men have a right to go to hell in a manner of their own choosing." Koppe 17:00 21 February 2007 (CET)
[edit] What is this attribute thing with India related quotes??
Why you have not put them as sourced and pretend them to be attributed? Your quotes that you still keep as "attributed" are not as flattering as Mark Twain has said in reality. To check refer to the book below.
This is the reference to most of India related quotes:-
Let me know the quotes if you fail to "source" your quotes.
The book is "Following the Equator" http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2895/2895.txt Read paragraphs starting with "This is indeed India"
"This is indeed India! the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of a hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition, whose yesterdays bear date with the mouldering antiquities of the rest of the nations--the one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien prince and alien peasant, for lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free, the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the globe combined. Even now, after the lapse of a year, the delirium of those days in Bombay has not left me, and I hope never will. It was all new, no detail of it hackneyed. And India did not wait for morning, it began at the hotel --straight away. The lobbies and halls were full of turbaned, and fez'd and embroidered, cap'd, and barefooted, and cotton-clad dark natives, some of them rushing about, others at rest squatting, or sitting on the ground; some of them chattering with energy, others still and dreamy; in the dining-room every man's own private native servant standing behind his chair, and dressed for a part in the Arabian Nights."
and check this para
"India had the start of the whole world in the beginning of things. She had the first civilization; she had the first accumulation of material wealth; she was populous with deep thinkers and subtle intellects; she had mines, and woods, and a fruitful soil. It would seem as if she should have kept the lead, and should be to-day not the meek dependent of an alien master, but mistress of the world, and delivering law and command to every tribe and nation in it. But, in truth, there was never any possibility of such supremacy for her. If there had been but one India and one language--but there were eighty of them! Where there are eighty nations and several hundred governments, fighting and quarreling must be the common business of life; unity of purpose and policy are impossible; out of such elements supremacy in the world cannot come. Even caste itself could have had the defeating effect of a multiplicity of tongues, no doubt; for it separates a people into layers, and layers, and still other layers, that have no community of feeling with each other; and in such a condition of things as that, patriotism can have no healthy growth. "
There is one more book on India travels by Mark Twain, you can "source" rest of your so called "attributed" quotes there.
Please change attributed to sourced.
While India had worst kind of problems you can imagine, but still Mark Twain was overwhelmed by its history's uniqueness and a lot many other people understand that India could have done a lot more in last 200 years than it did goind by what it did before that time.
thanks
- You do realize that the beauty of Wikiquote is that anyone can edit it, don't you? So you don't need to post marching orders for work that others can do, you can actually do it yourself, and make sure it gets done correctly! Ed Fitzgerald 07:07, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Incorrect Quote
I do not wish to edit this myself as I don't play around here very often & wouldn't want to make a mess of things...
The quote listed in the Sourced section as the epitath for his daughter's headstone is not of Twain's creation.
Warm summer sun, shine kindly here; Warm southern wind, blow softly here; Green sod above, lie light, lie light— Good-night, dear heart, good-night, good-night. Epitaph for his daughter, Olivia Susan Clemens (1896)
This is an excerpt from a poem by Robert Richardson, published 1893 & entitled "Annette". This stanza appears at the end. The last line is altered.
Details on this poem are located here:
http://www.twainquotes.com/headstone.html
- Thanks for the information; this has now been corrected. ~ Kalki 12:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Work like you don't need the money...
Anyone know about this one: Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody is watching. I find this frequently attributed to Mark Twain, but somehow I feel it doesn't sound like him. Any suggestions? ---Mermer 13:14, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
- No source cites this quote prior to 1990s, impossible for a Twain quote. The earliest, and likely correct attribution is Susanna Clark, in the 1989 country song "Come From the Heart", a collaboration on the Guy Clark album, Old Friends. The correct quote is as follows:
- You got to sing like you don't need the money
Love like you'll never get hurt
You got to dance like nobody's watchin'
It's gotta come from the heart if you want it to work.
- You got to sing like you don't need the money
- Here's a YouTube of Clarke singing the song. Cheers! BD2412 T 15:10, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
