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Let us swear while we may, for in Heaven it will not be allowed. Profanity is more necessary to me than is immunity from colds. The spirit of wrath and not the words -- is the sin; and the spirit of
wrath is cursing. We begin to swear before we can talk. |
 AI image created by R. Kent Rasmussen |
 Illustration from the Dave Thomson collection |
I sent down...and hired an artist by the week to sit up nights and curse
that stranger, and give me a lift occasionally in the daytime when I came
to a hard place. The idea that no gentleman ever swears is all wrong. He can swear and
still be a gentleman if he does it in a nice and benevolent and affectionate
way. When angry count four; when very angry, swear. There ought to be a room in every house to swear in. It's dangerous to
have to repress an emotion like that. Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances,
profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer. |
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When you're mad, count four; when you're very mad, swear! But most of
us don't wait to count four! at least I don't! He didn't utter a word, but he exuded mute blasphemy from every pore. |
 AI image created by R. Kent Rasmussen |
| ...he was empty. You could have drawn a seine through his system and not
caught curses enough to disturb your mother. - Life on the Mississippi I was...blaspheming my luck in a way that made my breath smell of brimstone. - Roughing It ...quadrilateral, astronomical, incandescent son-of-a-bitch. - Letter to William Dean Howells, 13 February 1903 Her eyes blazed up, and she jumped for him like a wild-cat, and when she was done with him she was rags and he wasn't anything but an allegory. - "A Horse's Tale" He began with that word "H". That's a long word and a profane word. I don't remember what the word was now, but I recognized the power of it. I had never used that language myself, but at that moment I was converted. It has been a great refuge for me in time of trouble. If a man doesn't know that language he can't express himself on strenuous occasions. When you have that word at your command let trouble come. - Speech, 19 February 1908 All through the first ten years of my married life I kept a constant and discreet watch upon my tongue while in the house, and went outside and to a distance when circumstances were too much for me and I was obliged to seek relief. I prized my wife's respect and approval above all the rest of the human race's respect and approval. I dreaded the day when she should discover that I was but a whited sepulcher partly freighted with suppressed language. I was so careful, during ten years, that I had not a doubt that my suppressions had been successful. Therefore I was quite as happy in my guilt as I could have been if I had been innocent. - Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 (2010) I have some new sleeve buttons...beautiful anticussers. You can put them in and take them out without a change of temper... - quoted in My Father Mark Twain, Clara Clemens My swearing doesn't mean any more to me than your sermons do to you. - comment made to Rev. Joe Twichell, quoted in Mark Twain and Hawaii, by Walter Francis Frear |
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