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Directory of Mark Twain's maxims, quotations, and various opinions:

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ONANISM

 

Of all the kinds of sexual intercourse, this has least to recommend it. As an amusement it is too fleeting, as an occupation it is to wearing; as a public exhibition there is no money in it. It has, in our last day of progress and improvement, been degraded to brotherhood with flatulence--among the best bred these two arts are now indulged only in private--though by consent of the whole company, when only males are present, it is still permissible, in good society, to remove the embargo upon the fundamental sigh.
- Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism speech, 1879

Caesar in his Commentaries, says, "to the lonely it is company; to the forsaken it is a friend; to the aged and impotent it is a benefactor; they that be penniless are yet rich, in that they still have this majestic diversion. There are times when I prefer it to sodomy."
- Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism speech, 1879

The monkey is the only animal, except man, that practices this science; hence he is our brother; there is a bond of sympathy and relationship between us. Give this ingenious animal an audience of the proper kind, and he will straightway put aside his other affairs and take a whet; and you will see by the contortions and his ecstatic expression that he takes an intelligent and human interest in his performance.
- Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism speech, 1879


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