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It is by the goodness of God that in our country we
have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom
of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.
- Following the Equator, Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar |
 AI image created by R. Kent Rasmussen |
| As an active privilege, it ranks with
the privilege of committing murder; we may exercise it if we are willing
to take the consequences. - "The Privilege of the Grave," published in Who is Mark Twain? |
 Detail from "Rush City" poster by Gus Heege. "A Dose of Pepper Causes the Orator to Loose His Voice" from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division |
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In America--as elsewhere--free speech is confined to the
dead. Sometimes my feelings are so hot that I have to take to
the pen and pour them out on paper to keep them from setting me afire
inside; then all that ink and labor are wasted, because I can't print
the result. I have just finished an article of this kind, and it satisfies
me entirely. It does my weather-beaten soul good to read it, and admire
the trouble it would make for me and the family. I will leave it behind,
and utter it from the grave. There is free speech there, and no harm to
the family. |
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WHO
IS MARK TWAIN?
available from amazon.com
contains the full text of "The Privilege of the Grave"
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