Mark Twain: Thoughts on Congress

The lightning there is peculiar; it is so convincing, that when it strikes a thing it doesn't leave enough of that thing behind for you to tell whether--Well, you'd think it was something valuable, and a Congressman had been there.

- Mark Twain's Speeches, "The Weather"

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

- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar

It is the foreign element that commits our crimes. There is no native criminal class except Congress.

- More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927

...the smallest minds and the selfishest souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes.

- Letter fragment, 1891

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

- Mark Twain, a Biography

Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.

- What Is Man?

Whiskey is carried into committee rooms in demijohns and carried out in demagogues.

- Notebook, 1868

All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.

- Mark Twain's Autobiography;
also in Mark Twain in Eruption

...I never can think of Judas Iscariot without losing my temper. To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature, Congressman.

- "Foster's Case", New York Tribune, 3/10/1873

Congressman is the trivialist distinction for a full grown man.

- Notebook #14, 11/1877 - 7/1878

Return to the words of wisdom, humor index..

Return to the main menu..

© Church of the Science of GOD, 1993
Web Designed by WebDiva