Only he who has seen better days and lives to see better days again knows their full value.
Mark TwainIf they [the dead] should speak, it would be found that in matters of opinion no departed person was exactly what he had passed for in life. They would realise, deep down, that they, and whole nations along with them, are not really what they seem to be-and never can be.
Mark TwainWill a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at themโand by laughing at them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weaponโlaughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution--these can lift at a colossal humbug,โpush it a littleโ crowd it a littleโweaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand. - "The Chronicle of Young Satan," Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts
Mark Twain