Friday, April 17, 2015

Mark Twain on Suicide


Ad art

You see, the lightning refuses to strike me -- that is where the defect is. We have to do our own striking, as Barney Bernato did. But nobody ever gets the courage till he goes crazy.- Letter to Henry Rogers, 16 June 1897

 Suicide is the only sane thing the young or old ever do in this life.
- quoted in Mark Twain: God' s Fool, Hamlin Hill

Unfortunately none of us can see far ahead; prophecy is not for us. Hence the paucity of suicides.
- "Which Was the Dream?"


But we are all insane, anyway...The suicides seem to be the only sane people.
- Mark Twain's Notebook, #40, (Jan. 1897-July 1900)

Of the demonstrably wise there are but two: those who commit suicide, & those who keep their reasoning faculties atrophied with drink.
- Notebook, 1898

I do see that there is an argument against suicide: the grief of the worshipers left behind, the awful famine in their hearts, these are too costly terms for the release.
- Letter to William Dean Howells, 13 July 1889

I would not be a party to that last and meanest unkindness, treachery to a would-be suicide. My sympathies have been with the suicides for many, many years. I am always glad when the suicide succeeds in his undertaking. I always feel a genuine pain in my heart, a genuine grief, a genuine pity, when some scoundrel stays the suicide's hand and compels him to continue his life.
- Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 2 (2013), p. 45-46. Dictated 11 April 1906.

No comments:

Post a Comment

If the post you are commenting on is more than 30 days old, your comment will have to await approval before being published. Rest assured, however, that as long as it is not spam, it will be published in due time.

Related Posts with Thumbnails