Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
It has always been a peculiarity of the human race that it keeps two sets of morals in stock-the private and the real, and the public and the artificial.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Humans often possess dual moral standards for private and public life.
Mark Twain's quote highlights the inherent complexity of human morality, suggesting that individuals often maintain two conflicting sets of moral values: one set that governs personal or private behavior, and another that applies to public or societal expectations. This duality reflects the nuances of human nature, where personal integrity may clash with the need to conform to social norms, pointing to a deeper commentary on authenticity and the pressures of societal acceptance.
Themes
MoralityPublicPrivateDualityHuman Nature
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about ethics in politics.
More from Mark Twain
All quotes βThe easy part of being an artist is figuring out the message that everyone else is ready to hear. The hard part is waiting for the proper lull to make the announcement.
Mark TwainRead
You can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.
Mark TwainRead
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
Mark TwainRead
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
Mark TwainRead
In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.
Mark TwainRead
Similar quotes
This melancholy London - I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.
William Butler YeatsRead
A myth is, of course, not a fairy story. It is the presentation of facts belonging to one category in the idioms appropriate to another. To explode a myth is accordingly not to deny the facts but to re-allocate them.
Gilbert RyleRead
We are all racing towards death. No matter how many great, intellectual conclusions we draw during our lives, we know they're all only man-made, like God. I begin to wonder where it all leads. What can you do, except do what you can do as best you know how.
John HurtRead
Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.
Thorstein VeblenRead
If you strive only to avoid the darkness or to cling to the light, you cannot live in balance. Try striving to be conscious of all that you are.
Gary ZukavRead
Because creation was made in the image of a God who is equally one and many, the human race will finally be reunited and our racial and cultural diversity will remain intact in the renewed world. The human race finally lives together in peace and interdependence. Glory to God in the highest goes with peace on earth.
Timothy KellerRead