Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
What do we call love, hate, charity, revenge, humanity, forgiveness? Different results of the master impulse, the necessity of securing one's self-approval.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that complex human emotions are influenced by a fundamental need for self-approval.
Mark Twain's quote reflects on the various aspects of human emotions such as love, hate, charity, revenge, humanity, and forgiveness, proposing that they are all manifestations of a deeper impulse: the necessity for individuals to secure their own self-approval. This insight highlights how our actions and feelings are often driven by the desire for validation and acceptance from within ourselves, prompting us to examine the motivations behind our behaviors.
Themes
LoveSelf-ApprovalHuman EmotionsForgivenessCharity
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared in a discussion about the nature of human emotions at a philosophy club.
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
Fate's arrow, when expected, travels slow.
Dante AlighieriRead
There are few persons who have not, at some period of their lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which particular conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The occupation is often full of interest and he who attempts it for the first time is astonished by the apparently illimitable distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal.
Edgar Allan PoeRead
Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
Franz KafkaRead
We are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations, and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart.
Aiden Wilson TozerRead
Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.
Robert Green IngersollRead
RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the grass.
Ambrose BierceRead