Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
When majority is insane, sane must go to asylum.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that in a society where the majority holds irrational beliefs, those who think rationally may feel out of place.
Mark Twain's quote highlights the irony of societal norms where majority opinions can often be disconnected from reason or truth. It underscores the discomfort faced by individuals who maintain a clear and rational perspective in a world that may often celebrate irrationality. Therefore, the quote encourages reflection on the nature of sanity and societal values, contemplating how often society misinterprets or marginalizes rational thought.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate on public policy, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of questioning popular opinions.
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.
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.
Similar quotes
It is apparent that nothing short of contraceptives can put an end to the horrors of abortion and infanticide.
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act.
And there you are on the shore, fitful and thoughtful, trying to attach them to an idea β some news of your own life. But the lilies are slippery and wildβthey are devoid of meaning, they are simply doing, from the deepest spurs of their being, what they are impelled to do every summer. And so, dear sorrow, are you.
I have neither permitted, nor shall I permit, the things which have been settled by the holy fathers to be violated by any innovation.
I have spent all my life under a Communist regime, and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either.
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.