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.


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[Of the fictional British cabinet minister Jim Hacker] Years of political training and experience had taught him to use twenty words where one would do
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One should as a rule respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison,
October 14, 2025
Speak well, but speak little.
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