Twain Reflections

I’ve always been a lover of quotes and bits of wisdom. I enjoy remembering them and passing them on, pretending I know a lot more that I do about many subjects. Much like brevity is the key to wit, I enjoy succinct quotes that are easy to remember yet packed with sagacity. Reading over all these quotes makes me wish that I had gotten a chance to meet Samuel Clemens or at least attend one of his lectures… he seems to have a great number of opinions on a great number of subjects, so it makes me wonder what he would be able to say to me in his witty southern drawl. I feel like much of what is in this book is relatively obvious, yet it makes me jealous that someone could say it in such a better way than I ever could.

            Among my favorite quotes in this book was this little gem about Joy…

                       

                        “Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have

somebody to divide it with.”

            This quote resonated with me, and for a while I couldn’t really decide why. I think when I read this I had one of those internal “A-ha!” moments that you get when you finally understand something you never realized was there in the first place. Grief can be very singular and very lonely, in fact I believe it is mostly so. Most people don’t want to be seen crying in front of others if they can do it alone in their bed away from it all. Depressed people (I assume?) don’t want to go hang out with friends in a noisy, bustling place with action and fun. They stay alone and do nothing and find it hard to escape. But humans are a social creature, and we have only gotten more social as technology has erupted and produced such wonders as the phone, the computer, the internet, and social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Because we are social, we feel joy most amplified when we are with others whom we love or enjoy company with. Doing something that elicits self-pride like acing a test or winning a race is cool in itself, but nothing feels sweeter than when others gratify your success and affirm your happiness. Similarly, causing others to be happy is one of the primary causes of one’s own happiness.

            On a quite different note, one of my favorite parts of this book is Twain’s relentless criticisms of the vices of humanity in comparison to other creatures, namely when it comes to stupidity and opinions. The section on Religion struck me as one of the funniest because of his obvious distaste for hypocrites. One of my favorite quotes from this section:

                       

                        “Man—he is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself, and cuts his

throat if his theology isn’t straight.”

            I can’t disagree with this quote even a little bit, and it also irks me to see so much hypocrisy from highly religious people. People who use religion as an excuse to do something that is, in fact, against their own religion is, to me, something that I have a very hard time reconciling when I evaluate a person. It really is ridiculous to me that humans possess the mental capacity to ponder religion and other-worldly phenomena, yet blatantly dishonor whatever it is they believe in at the same time by shooting up people who believe something else.