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

October 3, 2025
There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour.
November 25, 2025
Each class preaches the importance of those virtues it need not exercise.
October 18, 2025
Take our politicians: they’re a bunch of yo-yos.
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