As by the fires of experience, so by commission of crime you learn real
morals. Commit all crimes, familiarize yourself with all sins, take them
in rotation (there are only two or three thousand of them), stick to it,
commit two or three every day, and by and by you will be proof against them.
When you are through you will be proof against all sins and morally perfect.
You will be vaccinated against every possible commission of them. This is
the only way. - Speech, June 29 1899, at New Vagabonds Club, London, England |
It is my belief that no crime, however cowardly and however shameless
and cruel, can be imagined which there isn't somebody in Christiandom willing
to commit.
- Autobiographical dictation, 26 June 1908. Published in Autobiography of
Mark Twain, Volume 3 (University of California Press, 2015)
Nothing incites to money-crimes like great poverty or great wealth.
- More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927
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