Quote by Mark Twain

My idea of our civilization is that it is a shoddy, poor thing and full of cruelties, vanities, arrogances, meannesses and hypocrisies

My idea of our civilization is that it is a shoddy, poor thi

Summary

This quote reflects the speaker's perception of civilization as flawed and imperfect. They view it as a deeply flawed construct, highlighting various negative aspects such as cruelty, vanity, arrogance, meanness, and hypocrisy that they believe are inherent to our society. The individual implies that the current state of civilization fails to meet their expectations, suggesting a belief in the need for significant improvement and change.

Topics

Civilization

By Mark Twain

Liked the quote? Share it with your friends.

Random Quotations

Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulles

Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.

Life Work

Cheer up! The worst is yet to come!

Cheer up! The worst is yet to come!

Philander Johnson

Happiness

I despair of the Republic! Such dreariness, such whining sal

I despair of the Republic! Such dreariness, such whining sallow women, such utter absence of the amenities, such crass food, crass manners, crass landscape!! What a horror it is for a whole nation to be developing without the sense of beauty, and eating bananas for breakfast.

America

Every theory is a self-fulfilling prophecy that orders exper

Every theory is a self-fulfilling prophecy that orders experience into the framework it provides.

Assumptions

Former Olympians also get paid to make appearances. Many of

Former Olympians also get paid to make appearances. Many of them won their medals in an era when Olympic success didn't go hand-in-hand with financial success.

Mary Lou Retton

Success

The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other

The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, a pledge of sanity, and a protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities in which fine intellects sometimes lose themselves. A rogue alive to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow-men can do little for him.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Comedy

Hungry people cannot be good at learning or producing anythi

Hungry people cannot be good at learning or producing anything, except perhaps violence.

Learning

How little do they see what is, who frame their hasty judgme

How little do they see what is, who frame their hasty judgments upon that which seems.

Appearance

A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its oppone

A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

Truth Science

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, SelfRelianc

All sensations are true; pleasure is our natural goal.

All sensations are true; pleasure is our natural goal.

Pleasure

I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What

I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted just like that, and it didn't mean anything? What then?

Desires Fun Want