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 6, 2025
One should as a rule respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison,
September 11, 2025
People who want to understand democracy should spend less time in the library with Aristotle and more time on buses and in the subway.
November 23, 2025
00:53
You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a realist he is preparing to do something that he is secretly ashamed of doing.
Page 97 of 123