7/28/2019 Mark Twain - great quotes and scripts

1/2

I do not like work even when someone else does it.- "The Lost Napoleon"

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.- The_Adventures_of_TomSawyer

The bane of Americans is overwork--and the ruin of any work is a divided interest. Concentrate-concentrate. One thing at a time.-Letter to Orion Clemens, 12 May 1880

In America, we hurry--which is well; but when the day's work is done, we go on thinking of losses and gains, we plan for tomorrow, we even carry our business cares to bed with us...we burn up our energies with these excitements, and eitherdie early or drop into a lean and mean old age at a time of life which they calla man's prime in Europe...What a robust people, what a nation of thinkers we might be, if we would only lay ourselves on the shelf occasionally and renew our edges!- The Innocents Abroad

Only Bunyan, Sir Walter Raleigh, the author of Don Quixote, & a few other peoplehave had the best of opportunities for working, in this world. Solitary imprisonment, by compulsion, is the one perfect condition for perfect performance ... Then his work becomes his pleasure, his recreation, his absorption, his uplifting

& all-satisfying enthusiasm. He is miserable only when the work-day closes. Andyet a man so circumstanced need never be actually miserable; for he can weave his fancies & continue his work in his head until sleep overtakes him. He lives in a fairer world than any that is outside, he moves in a goodlier company than any that others know, & over them he is king & then obey him.- Letter to Mary Mason Fairbanks, 6 August 1877

There are wise people who talk ever so knowingly and complacently about "the working classes," and satisfy themselves thata day's hard intellectual work is very much harder than a day's hard manual toil, and is righteously entitled to much bigger pay. Why, they really think that,you know, because they all know about the one, but haven't tried the other. ButI know all about both; and as far as I am concerned, there isn't money enough in

the universe to hire me to swing a pickaxe thirty days, but I will do the hardest kind of intellectual work for just as near nothing as you can cipher it down--and I will be satisfied, too. Intellectual "work" is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation and its own highest reward. The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer, is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the magician with the fiddle-bow in his hand who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him--why certainly, he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it's a sarcasm just the same. The law of work does seem utterly unfair--but there it is, and nothingcan change it: the higher the pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it, the higher shall be his pay in cash, also. And it's also the very law of those transparent swindles, transmissible nobility and kingship.

- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's CourtThe secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started isbreaking your complex and overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.ntellectual 'work' is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward. The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor,painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer, is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the magician with the fiddle-bow inhis hand, who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him - why, certainly he is at work, if you

7/28/2019 Mark Twain - great quotes and scripts

2/2

wish to call it that, but lord, it's a sarcasm just the same. The law of work does seem utterly unfair - but there it is, and nothing can change it: the higherthe pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it, the higher shall be his pay in cash also ?

_ Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

HinduismIn the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna, an Avatar of Vishnu declared in verse 21, that lust is one of the gates to Naraka or hell. "Arjunasaid: O descendant of Vrsni, by what is one impelled to sinful acts, even unwillingly, as if engaged by force? Then Krishna said: It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material mode of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring sinful enemy of this world. As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, or as the embryo is covered by the womb, the living entityis similarly covered by different degrees of this lust. Thus the wise living entity's pure consciousness becomes covered by his eternal enemy in the form of lust, which is never satisfied and which burns like fire. The senses, the mind andtheintelligence are the sitting places of this lust. Through them lust covers the real knowledge of the living entity and bewilders him. Therefore, O Arjuna, best of the Bharatas, in the very beginning curb this great symbol of sin(lust) byregulating the senses, and slay this destroyer of knowledge and self-realization. The working senses are superior to dull matter; mind is higher than the senses;intelligence is still higher than the mind; and he [the soul] is even higher than the intelligence. Thus knowing oneself to betranscendental to the material s

enses, mind and intelligence, O mighty-armed Arjuna, one should steady the mindby deliberatespiritual intelligence and thusby spiritual strengthconquer this insatiable enemy known as lust." (Bhagavad-Gita, 3.3643) In this ancient manuscript the idea behind the word 'Lust' is best comprehended as the psychological force called 'Wanting'.

To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.? Augustine of Hippo

You are never too young to die !!!!