Mark Twain: Wit and Wisdom
Mark Twain explored the human condition with wit, buoyancy and a sharp eye for the truth. He was a hero and one of the best known writers to have lived. Twain wrote articles for the newspaper of his brother from age fifteen but it took years of honing his craft until he became truly successful as author at age thirty four with the publication of Innocents Abroad.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer came six years later which recounts with nostalgia the adventures of a boy growing up along the Mississippi. Twain’s ability to place an unexpected twist in one short sentence and his illumination of truth by juxtaposition is unmatched. His writing was humorous, often with and acerbic edge.
- "I am not one who in expressing opinions confines themselves to facts."
- "The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as the rightly timed pause."
- "Education: that which reveals to the wise and conceals to the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge."
- “Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”
- “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
His life was difficult in many ways. He lived in poor health for the first ten years and stayed indoors most of the time, testing his mother’s indulgence with his early mischief. He left school at age twelve when his father passed away to help the family survive. Twain grew up in the tough American south of the previous century and saw men being killed by fellow men. He lost three of his four children to illness. His wife died after a long illness. At these deaths he would continue writing “to keep my heart from breaking”. Bankrupt at age sixty, he made it back again.
- “Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”
- “I have been through terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”
- “Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.”
Twain was complex and multi-talented. He became a riverboat pilot, relishing the job: “A pilot, in those days, was the only unfettered and entirely independent human being that lived on earth”. He was a writer all of his life. He toured the world as an international lecturer including faraway countries such as New Zealand, India and South Africa. As an entrepreneur he poured most of his book royalties into an automatic type-setting machine; a venture that never really took off.
In all these endeavors Mark Twain showed himself to be an optimist ever reaching for the next star. His charming persona hid a gritty determination to work himself away from the poverty experienced in his childhood. In his prime he enjoyed international fame; photographed and applauded wherever he went. Awarded degrees by Yale and Oxford, he lived in the US and in Europe.
Twain lived life to the full all the while honing his talents. Before he walked onto a stage to deliver his first lecture, he was so terrified he claimed he hadn’t eaten or slept for days. He used to read his jokes aloud to his family, and they’d tell him if and when they weren’t funny. His first successful book came after twenty years of writing.
- “In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language”.
- “It is better not to have honors and deserve them, than to have them and not to deserve them”.
- “Life does not consist mainly – or even largely – of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of storms of thoughts that are forever blowing through one’s mind”.
- “The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.”
- “It usually takes three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech”.
- “Courage is the resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not its absence “
Mark Twain was the slang used by riverboat pilots for water that was twelve feet deep and deemed safe for passage. Born Samuel Clemens, the name he choose as a writer was fitting in its irony as he often found himself adrift from security and familiarity, yet was not afraid to jump into larger depths of experience.
His life was one of tragedy and triumph and his most lasting legacy his his gift of humour:
“Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes its place”.
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Comments
🐝 Fatima G. Williams
7 years ago #19
He did not have any sons ROFLOL Dean Owen "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything" - Mark Twain
Gert Scholtz
7 years ago #18
Dean Owen
7 years ago #17
Julio Angel 🐝Lopez Lopez
7 years ago #16
🐝 Fatima G. Williams
7 years ago #15
Gert Scholtz
7 years ago #14
Lisa Gallagher
7 years ago #13
Kevin Pashuk
7 years ago #12
Gert Scholtz
7 years ago #11
Ken Boddie My test on the Dad jokes: If my children DON'T laugh at it, it is probably Ok for adults. Thank you for reading. Your wit is why I like beBee.
Ken Boddie
7 years ago #10
Ken Boddie
7 years ago #9
Paul Walters
7 years ago #8
Paul Walters
7 years ago #7
Gert Scholtz
7 years ago #6
Dean Owen,@philfriedman, to name a few - thanks for making beBee a fun place to Bee.
Gert Scholtz
7 years ago #5
debasish majumder Glad a master wordsmith such as yourself enjoyed the piece. Thank you.
Gert Scholtz
7 years ago #4
CityVP Manjit Thank you for your comments and the "Adventures of Mark Zorro". Great tag line: "Mark Twain wasn't Mark Twain, Mark Zorro isn't Mark Zorro".
CityVP Manjit
7 years ago #3
Dean Owen
7 years ago #2
Gert Scholtz
7 years ago #1
Thanks for the shares Nick. I nod to you!