Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
Now I can only pray that there may be a God -- and a heaven -- or something better.
Interpretation
The speaker expresses a hope for a higher power and an afterlife, suggesting a longing for something greater than this life.
In this quote, Mark Twain reflects on the uncertainty of existence and the human desire to believe in a divine presence and an afterlife. It captures a moment of vulnerability, where the notion of seeking meaning beyond our earthly experiences becomes a profound longing for reassurance and hope in a possibly chaotic world.
In practice
This quote could be used in a philosophical discussion about the existence of God.
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.
The truth is, anybody that becomes famous is an ass for a year and a half. You've got to give them a year and a half, two years. They are getting so much smoke blown, and their whole world gets so turned upside down, their responses become distorted. I give everybody a year or two to pull it together because, when it first happens, I know how it is.
It is not our sexual preferences, the color of our skin, the language we speak, nor the religion we practice that creates friction, hatred and wars amongst in society. It is our words and the words of our leaders that can create that disparity.
The reality we live in is selected by our conceptual definitions. You and I may be in the same physical space, but each of us will see it as entirely different.
Human nature is so constituted, that all see and judge better in the affairs of other men than in their own.
All who contribute to the overthrow of religion, or to the ruin of kingdoms and commonwealths, all who are foes to letters and to the arts which confer honour and benefit on the human race (among whom I reckon the impious, the cruel, the ignorant, the indolent, the base and the worthless), are held in infamy and detestation.
Thatβs the thing with the young these days, isnβt it? They watch too many happy endings. Everything has to be wrapped up, with a smile and a tear and a wave. Everyone has learned, found love, seen the error of their ways, discovered the joys of monogamy, or fatherhood, or filial duty, or life itself. In my day, people got shot at the end of films, after learning only that life is hollow, dismal, brutish, and short.
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