Print from
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Published in: "Our Invisible Helpers" by Maurice Maeterlinck, Cosmopolitan,
63:41 (Nov. 1917).
Trusting in Providence is a very good thing, as far as it goes, but a chart
and a compass are worth six of it, any time. Statistics have shown this to be
true.
- remark written in manuscript for Life on the Mississippi. Quoted in
Mark Twain and Human Nature by Tom Quirk (Univ. of Mo. Press, 2007).
There is this trouble about special providences--namely, there is so often
a doubt as to which party was intended to be the beneficiary. In the case of
the children, the bears, and the prophet, the bears got more real satisfaction
out of the episode than the prophet did, because they got the children.
- "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
I have often noticed that as a general thing when Providence sets out to deliver
retribution upon a certain man, the plans of a lot of "instruments"
are knocked galley-west who haven't been doing anything. I have lost just about
half my time, since I was born, acting as an instrument. And in about nine cases
out of ten it was to fetch retributions upon parties whose fate I was not even
interested in--often, in fact, parties whom I was not even acquainted with.
- Letter to Louise Chandler Moulton, January 8, 1875
There are many scapegoats for our sins, but the most popular is Providence.
- Notebook, 1898
The proverb says that Providence protects children and idiots. This is really
true. I know it because I have tested it.
- Autobiography of Mark Twain, (used as prelude to bowling story)
I never count any prospective chickens when I know that Providence knows where
the nest it.
- Letter to William Dean Howells, October 15, 1883
My experience with Providence has not been of a nature to give me great confidence
in his judgment, and I consider that my wife crept in while his attention was
occupied elsewhere.
- quoted in Melbourne Age October 28, 1895
Prov'dence don't fire no blank ca'tridges, boys.
- Roughing It
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