What did Mark Twain say about Congress?

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Wiki User · Accepted Answer

"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress."

"Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."

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Mark Twain  frequently commented on politics. Here are a few of his quotes: I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's. - Mark Twain in Eruption  Look at the tyranny of party--at what is called party allegiance, party loyalty--a snare invented by designing men for selfish purposes--and which turns voters into chattles, slaves, rabbits, and all the while their masters, and they themselves are shouting rubbish about liberty, independence, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, honestly unconscious of the fantastic contradiction; and forgetting or ignoring that their fathers and the churches shouted the same blasphemies a generation earlier when they were closing their doors against the hunted slave, beating his handful of humane defenders with Bible texts and billies, and pocketing the insults and licking the shoes of his Southern master. - "The Character of Man," Mark Twain's Autobiography  The political and commercial morals of the United States are not merely food for laughter, they are an entire banquet. - Mark Twain in Eruption  In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing. - Autobiography of Mark Twain  To lodge all power in one party and keep it there is to insure bad government and the sure and gradual deterioration of the public morals. - Mark Twain's Autobiography

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All Quotes courtesy of BrainyQuote.com: A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. Mark Twain  A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar. Mark Twain  A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. Mark Twain  A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation. Mark Twain  A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. Mark Twain  A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds. Mark Twain  A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape. Mark Twain  Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often. Mark Twain  Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. Mark Twain  Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. Mark Twain  All generalizations are false, including this one. Mark Twain  All right, then, I'll go to hell. Mark Twain  All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure. Mark Twain  Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. Mark Twain  Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured. Mark Twain  Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary. Mark Twain  Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today. Mark Twain  As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake. Mark Twain  Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. Mark Twain  Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul. Mark Twain  Better a broken promise than none at all. Mark Twain  Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Mark Twain  Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written. Mark Twain  But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most? Mark Twain  Buy land, they're not making it anymore. Mark Twain  By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man's, I mean. Mark Twain  Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. Mark Twain  Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities. Mark Twain  'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read. Mark Twain  Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get. Mark Twain  Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. Mark Twain  Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. Mark Twain  Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. Mark Twain  Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. Mark Twain  Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain. Mark Twain  Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. Mark Twain  Don't let schooling interfere with your education. Mark Twain  Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. Mark Twain  Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream. Mark Twain  Don't tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish. Mark Twain  Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it. Mark Twain  Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned. Mark Twain  Everything has its limit - iron ore cannot be educated into gold. Mark Twain  Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven. Mark Twain  Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable. Mark Twain  Familiarity breeds contempt - and children. Mark Twain  Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. Mark Twain  Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't. Mark Twain  Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. Mark Twain  George Washington , as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie. Mark Twain  Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please. Mark Twain  Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times. Mark Twain  Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. Mark Twain  God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board. Mark Twain  Golf is a good walk spoiled. Mark Twain  Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person. Mark Twain  Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. Mark Twain  Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with. Mark Twain  He is now rising from affluence to poverty. Mark Twain  Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it. Mark Twain  Humor is mankind's greatest blessing. Mark Twain  Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever. Mark Twain  I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. Mark Twain  I can live for two months on a good compliment. Mark Twain  I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it. Mark Twain  I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way. Mark Twain  I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places. Mark Twain  I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough. Mark Twain  I have made it a rule never to smoke more that one cigar at a time. Mark Twain  I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. Mark Twain  I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting. Mark Twain  I make it a rule never to smoke while I'm sleeping. Mark Twain  I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up. Mark Twain  I never let schooling interfere with my education. Mark Twain  I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know. Mark Twain  I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one. Mark Twain  I've never let my school interfere with my education. Mark Twain  Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own. Mark Twain  If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first. Mark Twain  If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat. Mark Twain  If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later. Mark Twain  If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way. Mark Twain  If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. Mark Twain  In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards. Mark Twain  In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours. Mark Twain  It ain't those parts of The Bible  that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand. Mark Twain  It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. Mark Twain  It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress. Mark Twain  It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them. Mark Twain  It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. Mark Twain  It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected. Mark Twain  It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them. Mark Twain  It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare. Mark Twain  It is easier to stay out than get out. Mark Twain  It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions. Mark Twain  It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races. Mark Twain  It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. Mark Twain  It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it. Mark Twain  It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling. Mark Twain  It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense. Mark Twain  It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. Mark Twain  Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. Mark Twain  Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one. Mark Twain  Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. Mark Twain  Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation. Mark Twain  Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all. Mark Twain  Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen. Mark Twain  Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms. Mark Twain  Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. Mark Twain  Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it. Mark Twain  Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired. Mark Twain  Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to. Mark Twain  Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired. Mark Twain  Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied. Mark Twain  Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising. Mark Twain  Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins. Mark Twain  My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water. Mark Twain  My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. Mark Twain  Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident. Mark Twain  Necessity is the mother of taking chances. Mark Twain  Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow. Mark Twain  No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon. Mark Twain  Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid. Mark Twain  Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. Mark Twain  Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat. Mark Twain  One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives. Mark Twain  Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial "we." Mark Twain  Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet. Mark Twain  Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside. Mark Twain  Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about. Mark Twain  Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. Mark Twain  Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed. Mark Twain  Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks. Mark Twain  Prosperity is the best protector of principle. Mark Twain  Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. Mark Twain  Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late. Mark Twain  Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. Mark Twain  Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough. Mark Twain  Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. Mark Twain  Such is the human race, often it seems a pity that Noah... didn't miss the boat. Mark Twain  Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself. Mark Twain  The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up. Mark Twain  The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes. Mark Twain  The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. Mark Twain  The educated Southerner has no use for an 'R', except at the beginning of a word. Mark Twain  The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. Mark Twain  The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year. Mark Twain  The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. Mark Twain  The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner. Mark Twain  The lack of money is the root of all evil. Mark Twain  The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives. Mark Twain  The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. Mark Twain  The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little. Mark Twain  The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become. Mark Twain  The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. Mark Twain  The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop. Mark Twain  The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not. Mark Twain  The Public is merely a multiplied "me." Mark Twain  The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all. Mark Twain  The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Mark Twain  The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. Mark Twain  The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane. Mark Twain  The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven. Mark Twain  The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right. Mark Twain  The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice. Mark Twain  The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession. Mark Twain  There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded. Mark Twain  There are lies, damned lies and statistics. Mark Twain  There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one - keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy. Mark Twain  There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice. Mark Twain  There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce. Mark Twain  There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable. Mark Twain  There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress. Mark Twain  There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist. Mark Twain  Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others. Mark Twain  Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work. Mark Twain  To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble. Mark Twain  To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal. Mark Twain  To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence. Mark Twain  Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so. Mark Twain  Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain  Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it. Mark Twain  Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer. Mark Twain  Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. Mark Twain  We Americans... bear the ark of liberties of the world. Mark Twain  We are all alike, on the inside. Mark Twain  We have the best government that money can buy. Mark Twain  What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before. Mark Twain  What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself. Mark Twain  What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin. Mark Twain  Ads by Google  What is my purpose?  Learn about life's big questions & read real testimonies at Mormon.org www.mormon.org What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce. Mark Twain  When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people. Mark Twain  When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear. Mark Twain  When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not. Mark Twain  When in doubt tell the truth. Mark Twain  When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself. Mark Twain  When red-haired people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn. Mark Twain  When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. Mark Twain  When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain. Mark Twain  When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old. Mark Twain  Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. Mark Twain  Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved. Mark Twain  Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. Mark Twain  Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation. Mark Twain  Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself. Mark Twain  Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. Mark Twain  Work is a necessary evil to be avoided. Mark Twain  Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. Mark Twain  You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. Mark Twain  Wow. Mark Twain sure wrote a lot of quotes, didn't he?

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Mark Twin said for India .........  "India is the only millionaire......the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for all the shows of all the rest of the globe combined."

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His view was...we shouldn't have any! Well, what can I say, he was an American humorist as well as a novelist.

AnswerBot · Answer

Mark Twain famously said, "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." This quote reflects his critical view of politicians and their actions.

What did Mark Twain say about Congress?

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