QuoteProject
We adore titles and heredities in our hearts and ridicule them with our mouths. This is our democratic privilege.
Mark Twain
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote highlights the hypocrisy in how people both admire and mock social hierarchies, reflecting a complex relationship with authority.

Mark Twain's quote reveals a duality in human nature regarding social status and titles. While individuals may privately respect and admire those with prestigious titles and heritages, they often express disdain or ridicule for the same in public discourse. This reflects a democratic privilege where people feel entitled to criticize societal norms while simultaneously holding those same values in esteem. Twain's commentary invites us to reflect on the contradictions inherent in social attitudes towards class, status, and the notions of equality.

Themes

TitlesHereditiesDemocracyHypocrisySociety

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about social equality, one might use Twain's quote to demonstrate the contradictions in public attitudes toward status.

More from Mark Twain

Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
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

With a tiny bit of effort, the nettle would be useful; if you neglect it, it becomes a pest. So then we kill it. How many men are like nettles My friends, there is no such thing as a weed and no such thing as a bad man. There are only bad cultivators.
Victor HugoRead
You don't reason with intellectuals. You shoot them.
Napoleon BonaparteRead
I have remained true to my deepest convictions. I mean the courage of those who are born to be defeated, the weaknesses of the strong, and the tragedy of misunderstandings and missed opportunities, which I have done my best to treat as comedyβ€”for otherwise how can we manage to bear it?
Penelope FitzgeraldRead
We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice.
Friedrich August Von HayekRead
He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars: general Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer, for Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars.
William BlakeRead
In spite of the fact that the law of revenge solves no social problems, men continue to follow its disastrous leading. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.