Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
Obscurity and a competence—that is the life that is best worth living.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Living a simple yet competent life away from the limelight is the most fulfilling.
Mark Twain suggests that a life characterized by obscurity and competence is superior to one filled with fame and uncertainty. The essence of this quote lies in the appreciation of pursuing skillfulness and mastery in the shadows, away from societal expectations and pressures, leading to a fulfilling existence free from the burdens of public scrutiny.
Themes
ObscurityCompetenceLifeFulfillmentSimplicity
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a motivational speech focusing on the value of skilled craftsmanship over fame.
More from Mark Twain
All quotes →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.
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
I was dying. Like all the other people who live in this world.
Haruki MurakamiRead
One who comes to the Court must come to adore, not to protest. That's the new gloss on the First Amendment.
William O. DouglasRead
It is our own evil thoughts which madden us.
Marcus Tullius CiceroRead
War has been avoided from a due sense of the miseries, and the demoralization it produces, and of the superior blessings of a state of peace and friendship with all mankind.
Thomas JeffersonRead
Injustice in the end produces independence.
VoltaireRead
I believe in the American tradition of separation of church and state which is expressed in the First Amendment to the Constitution. By my office - and by personal conviction - I am sworn to uphold that tradition.
Lyndon B. JohnsonRead