Mark Twain for President Platform
| POLITICAL PLATFORM UPON THIS PLATFORM OF TRUTH AND WIT I PURPOSE TO RUN FOR THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES TRUTH Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it. -Following the Equator When in doubt, tell the truth. -Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar Familiarity breeds contempt. How accurate that is. The reason we hold truth in such respect is because we have so little opportunity to get familiar with it. -Notebook, 1898 Supreme Court I hate to hear people say this Judge will vote so and so, because he is a Democrat - and this one so and so because he is a Republican. It is shameful. The Judges have the Constitution for their guidance; they have no right to any politics save the politics of rigid right and justice when they are sitting in judgment upon the great matters that come before them. -letter to San Francisco Alta California, February 18, 1868 Statesmanship If we had less statesmanship, we would get along with fewer battleships. -Notebook, 1905 Get the formalities right, never mind about the moralities. -Following the Equator Slavery Man is the only Slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. He has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another. In our day he is always some man's slave for wages, and does that man's work; and this slave has slaves under him for minor wages, and they do his work. The higher animals are the only ones who do their own work and provide their own living. -"The Lowest Animal" The skin of every human being contains a slave. -Notebook, 1904 SENATORS Senator: a person who makes laws in Washington when not doing time. -More Maxims of Mark, Johnson There are many Senators whom I hold in a certain respect and would not think of declining to meet socially, if I believed that it was the will of God. We have lately sent a United States Senator to the penitentiary, but I am quite well aware that of those who have escaped this promotion there are several who are in some regards guiltless of crime-- not guiltless of all crimes, for that cannot be said of any United States Senator, I think, but guiltless of some kinds of crime. -Mark Twain in Eruption RIGHTS With us no individual is born with a right to look down upon his neighbor and hold him in contempt. -"Americans and English" speech Man has not a single right which is the product of anything but might. Not a single right is indestructible: a new might can at any time abolish it, hence, man possesses not a single permanent right. -Mark Twain's Notebook REFORM Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. -Pudd'nhead Wilson, 1894 Every time I reform in one direction, I go overboard in another. -quoted in Sacramento Union, 1866 You can straighten a worm, but the crook is in him and only waiting. -More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927 Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. -Notebook, 1904 POLITICIANS No matter how healthy a man's morals may be when he enters the White House, he comes out again with a pot-marked soul. -quoted in My Father Mark Twain, Clara Clemens History has tried hard to teach us that we can't have good government under politicians. Now, to go and stick one at the very head of the government couldn't be wise. -New York herald, August 26, 1876 FREEDOM OF SPEECH In America--as elsewhere--free speech is confined to the dead. -Notebook, 1904 FREEDOM OF THE PRESS It is a free press . . . There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press. -License of the Press speech . . .the liberty of the Press is called the Palladium of Freedom, which means, in these days, the liberty of being deceived, swindled, and humbugged by the Press and paying hugely for the deception. -"From Author's Sketch Book, Nov. 1870" FREEDOM It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either. -Following the Equator CITIZENSHIP . . .every citizen of the republic ought to consider himself an unofficial policeman, and keep unsalaried watch and ward over the laws and their execution. -"Traveling With a Reformer" Citizenship should be placed above everything else, even learning. Is there in any college of the land a chair of citizenship where good citizenship and all that it implies is taught? There is not one--that is, not one where sane citizenship is taught. There are some which teach insane citizenship, bastard citizenship, but that is all. -Speech, May 14, 1908 IMPERIALISM I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land. -quoted in A Pen Warmed Up in Hell CONGRESS Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can. -What is Man? . . .the smallest minds and the selfishest souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes. -Letter, 1891 I never can think of Judas Iscariot without losing my temper. To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature, Congressman. -"Foster's Case", New York Tribune, March 10, 1873 |
Vote Mark Twain for President
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