Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Mark Twain humorously critiques the effectiveness of long sermons in holding people's attention.
This quote by Mark Twain highlights the idea that people's focus wanes quickly during long speeches, particularly sermons, suggesting that after the initial excitement fades, the message often becomes lost on the audience. Twain uses humor to convey a deeper truth about communication: that engaging an audience is crucial for the message to resonate, and that many may tune out shortly after the beginning of a sermon.
Themes
SermonAttentionHumorCommunicationEngagement
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech at a charity event, I referenced Mark Twain's quote to emphasize the importance of keeping the audience engaged.
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
You know when you're sitting on a chair and you lean back so you're just on two legs and you lean too far so you almost fall over but at the last second you catch yourself? I feel like that all the time.
Steven WrightRead
Things have to be funny first, and if they want to have a point, that's awesome.
John MulaneyRead
Calvin: Isn't it strange that evolution would give us a sense of humor? When you think about it, it's weird that we have a physiological response to absurdity. We laugh at nonsense. We like it. We think it's funny. Don't you think it's odd that we appreciate absurdity? Why would we develop that way? How does it benefit us? Hobbes: I suppose if we couldn't laugh at things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life.
Bill WattersonRead
It is astonishing how articulate one can become when alone and raving at a radio. Arguments and counter arguments, rhetoric and bombast flow from one's lips like scurf from the hair of a bank manager.
Stephen FryRead
Are you laboring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can't even lift them.
Franklin D. RooseveltRead
He would have felt safe if alongside the Dentrassis' underwear, the piles of Sqornshellous mattresses and the man from Betelgeuse holding up a small yellow fish and offering to put it in his ear he had been able to see just a small packet of cornflakes. But he couldn't, and he didn't feel safe.
Douglas AdamsRead