 Illustration by Dwig from Brevities, 1903 |
Those people....early stricken of God, intellectually--the departmental
interpreters of the laws in Washington...can always be depended on to
take any reasonably good law and interpret the common sense all out of
it. We have an insanity plea that would have saved Cain. Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against
insanity. |
If we only had some God in the country's laws, instead of being in such a sweat
to get him into the Constitution, it would be better all around.
- Letter to W. D. Howells, 9/18/1875
The laws of Nature, that is to say the laws of God, plainly made every human
being a law unto himself, we must steadfastly refuse to obey those laws, and
we must as steadfastly stand by the conventions which ignore them, since the
statutes furnish us peace, fairly good government, and stability, and therefore
are better for us than the laws of God, which would soon plunge us into confusion
and disorder and anarchy if we should adopt them.
- Mark Twain in Eruption
In this topsy-turvy, crazy, illogical world, Man has made laws for himself.
He has fenced himself round with them, mainly with the idea of keeping communities
together, and gain for the strongest. No woman was consulted in the making of
laws. And nine-tenths of the people who are daily obeying--or fighting against--Nature's
laws, have no real opinion. Opinion means deduction, after weighing the matter,
and deep thought upon it. They simply echo feeling, because for generations
forbears have laid something down as an axiom. They do not investigate or weigh
for themselves. The axiom of the forbears was, 'It is immoral to follow God's
law, unless bound by man's law and a wedding ring.'
- quoted in Mark Twain on Three Weeks, Elinor Glyn
It would not be possible for Noah to do in our day what he was permitted to
do in his own...The inspector would come and examine the Ark, and make all sorts
of objections.
- "About All Kinds of Ships," 1892
...the administration of the law can never go lax where every individual sees
to it that it grows not lax in his own case, or in cases which fall under his
eyes.
- Mark Twain's Notebook
You see, he knew his own laws just as other people so often know the laws:
by words, not by effects. They take a meaning, and get to be very vivid, when
you come to apply them to yourself.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
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