Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
A dream...I was trying to explain to St. Peter, and was doing it in the German tongue, because I didn't want to be too explicit.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the complexity of communication and the nuances involved in expressing one's thoughts, especially about significant themes like dreams and the afterlife.
In this quote, Mark Twain humorously contemplates the difficulties of explaining one's dreams to St. Peter, using the German language to avoid full disclosure. It illustrates the challenges of conveying profound thoughts and experiences, highlighting that even in dreams, clarity can be elusive and that we often grapple with how to articulate our inner lives to others.
In practice
Using this quote during a discussion about the significance of dreams in literature.
Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
The 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.
You can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
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.
I am convinced that the deepest desire within each of us is to be liberated from the controlling influences of our own psychic madness or patterns of fear. All other things—the disdain of ordinary life, the need to control others rather than be controlled, the craving for material goods as a means of security and protection against the winds of chaos—are external props that serve as substitutes for the real battle, which is the one waged within the individual soul.
The nature of man is such that people consider themselves put under an obligation as much by the benefits they confer as by those they receive.
There once was a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely world.
The contradiction [trying to use Russian model to reshape Italy] grew to such an extent that I felt totally cut off from the communist world and, in the end, from politics. That was fortunate. The idea of putting literature in second place, after politics, is an enormous mistake, because politics almost never achieves its ideals.
There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.
The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.
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