Quotes Library

December 4, 2025

Reader, suppose you were an idiot; and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (“Mark Twain”) (1835–1910), American writer, in Des MacHale, Wit (1997), p.198

Assuming you are an elected politician, do any of your colleagues qualify as idiots? Assuming you are a wannabe, does Twain induce second thoughts? How do you propose to demonstrate you are not an idiot, once elected?

The attention paid in today’s media (both traditional and social) to what in years past would have been obscure members of Congress allows many more people to see the truth in Twain’s statement.


More Quotes

February 28 (Bonus Quote)
The flood of money that gushes into politics today is a pollution of democracy.
July 24, 2025
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
September 20, 2025
Never lose your temper with the Press or the public is a major rule of political life.
Page 113 of 123