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Good quotes: Mark Twain on Revolutional terror
  • About France and the French, before the ever memorable and blessed Revolution, which swept a thousand years of such villany away in one swift tidal-wave of blood--one: a settlement of that hoary debt in the proportion of half a drop of blood for each hogshead of it that had been pressed by slow tortures out of that people in the weary stretch of ten centuries of wrong and shame and misery the like of which was not to be mated but in hell.

    There were two 'Reigns of Terror,' if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the 'horrors' of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break?

    What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror--that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

    Mark Twain

  • 29 Replies sorted by
  • .... He must of said that from his first-class deck chair while globetrotting around the world.

  • @kurth

    He was far from socialist, but if you do not understand basic things he wrote about - it is hard to help.

  • @Vitaliy...have you ever been to hannibal missouri ? You want to tell me about mark twain? lol.

  • @kurth

    I have no words, you reached new low.

  • @Vitaliy ...""it is hard to help""...it's like me telling you i know more about Tolstoy. I grew up in western united states digesting it's literature and following it's tracks in my youth, and started with Twain and Huck. Went on to Hemingway and Kerouac and a thousand others. Making the pilgrimages. Twain was an incredible man and he loved to be looked upon as a hero for the common man. But he was anything but. And what they did in france was no different what they did to the elites elsewhere. The myth of the fallen king...hail the new king. Remember Anastasia ?

  • @kurth

    You want to hide your big issues under cinicism. You are afraid, as it is scary that your nice comfortable world is falling on you head. :-) Consider this quote a letter to you, letter you already read and understood, but you want to show everyone that you did not.

    .it's like me telling you i know more about Tolstoy. I grew up in western united states digesting it's literature and following it's tracks in my youth, and started with Twain and Huck.

    Just ignore the personalities and focus on content.

  • @Vitaliy....so you want to quote mark twain, but ignore personalities ? that's incongruent. And me scared....not of anything the ruling class has a say about. Maybe alittle uneasy about dying and my soul vanishing into a whiff of smoke. But little else.

  • @kurth

    Well, in the case where to avoid uncomfortable feeling you try to use some kind of personal attack - yes.

    You are scared and as I told - you want to compensate it with bravado.

  • @Vitaliy....short memory today?...anyone just has to read this thread and see that you are always the instigator of personal attacks...so please don't accuse me of starting any quarrels. I never get personal first. And I always assume that if someone enters the "personal arena" , then there's new rules, because they weren't able to mount a reasonable defense, to which I was being critical. And bravado...yep guilty, and it's got me into deep trouble before.

  • @Vitaliy....I think you might be projecting your fears onto me. Things here are really quite nice. If you live in a country that is perpetually falling, then you get used to it. You should be used to it as well. But maybe things are really scary there. Get to Mex. I'll help you get set up.

  • @kurth

    No one is projecting anything, I just believe that people can improve and you constantly try to prove me wrong.

    Topic will be cleared in next 24 hours from our exchanges.

  • Vitaliy come on why clean topic

    Healthy discussion is always good

  • I agree that need to keep any discussion, but it needs to have value. This one does not.

  • @Vitaliy ....I'd like to know what mark twains take ( remember he was almost a century behind ) of the reign of terror, have to do with people improving ? As I read it, the post is almost a proclamation in it's defense, in contrast to the bitter lives we lived for millenniums before. It's a fact, people are known to not improve during reigns of terror. That Twain was famous for his verbosity is an understatement. That someone later can use his false logic to justify a preferred outcome, doesn't make Twain true. There won't ever be another reset, no reign nor restitution's, nor trials of the guilty, nor more kings slayed, so don't fret. The way things are going we're gonna jump over points 2, 3, 4, & 5 and go straight to nuclear extinction. And it's not in our control. Yours nor mine. You see...on nov 4th, 1979 the US embassy started their day by burning thousands of documents, and I'd guess a good prelude to the beginning of any war starts with foreign embassy's burning documents ...and the same thing happened in the Houston Chinese consulate today.... https://abc13.com/fire-chinese-consulate-documents-being-burned-houston-us-and-china-tensions/6328284/

  • @kurth

    It has all to do with your chance to improve or being thrown out by the history.

    The way things are going we're gonna jump over points 2, 3, 4, & 5 and go straight to nuclear extinction

    You are so scared, so scared.

    Like little squirrel and first time in his life he sees how Yenisei starts to crack and move after long long winter.

    You see...on nov 4th, 1979 the US embassy started their day by burning thousands of documents, and I'd guess a good prelude to the beginning of any war starts with foreign embassy's burning documents ...and the same thing happened in the Houston Chinese consulate today...

    All Chinese did is preparing to forced US police and FBI entry on territory, happened with Mordor locations in US just few years ago against all international laws.

    Making tragery out of absolutely normal step in huge conflict that will move human history forward in next months and years is just sad. It will be pain, but it will be huge release.

  • @Vitaliy...oh...so you're talking about the elites improving, not the peons. And has FBi raided the chinese consulate? This isn't comparable. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-diplomacy/russia-threatens-retaliation-over-u-s-break-in-at-consulate-idUSKCN1C80M9 .....And telling an opponent they're afraid reminds me of fake wrestling. Lots of that in mordor, no? Is that your source, or some badly translated ancient chinese art of war....sun tzu reborn maybe ? ""Making tragery out of absolutely normal step in huge conflict that will move human history forward in next months and years is just sad. It will be pain, but it will be huge release."" ...and they said that in Athens when the Ptolomy's fell into chaos as well. And a dozen other empires. France , as you will remember , fell into the napoleonic war criminal state after the reign.

  • ...oh...so you're talking about the elites improving, not the peons

    You are talking with youself, I guess.

    And has FBi raided the chinese consulate? This isn't comparable. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-diplomacy/russia-threatens-retaliation-over-u-s-break-in-at-consulate-idUSKCN1C80M9 ..

    Since Mordor consulate raid all consulate have protocols to burn stuff, and they got 72 hour closure notice (without any reason pointed, contrary to cheap PR media) BEFORE they started to burn anything.

    ....And telling an opponent they're afraid reminds me of fake wrestling.

    It is just so obvious. It is just like you see shaking girl before lion who repeatedly tells you that she is not afraid.

  • Meanwhile...

  • @ninetto

    In the Charenton Asylum in 1808, the Marquis de Sade stages a play about the murder of Jean-Paul Marat by Charlotte Corday, using his fellow inmates as actors. The director of the hospital, Monsieur Coulmier, supervises the performance

    The Marquis himself, meanwhile, subtly manipulates both the players and the audience to create an atmosphere of chaos and nihilism that ultimately brings on an orgy of destruction.

    Sounds like shit.

  • @Vitaliy...."It has all to do with your chance to improve or being thrown out by the history." ...you said it...but maybe half the problem is your english. Most people speaking a 2nd language understand their limitations. And show me a link where you read that mordor embassy's have an order to burn everything....or is that one of your imaginary "sources" ? And about your fear...."Psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. Psychological projection involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings." And Marat Sade was a seminal work. I actually saw it in the theater in about 1968....most likely before you were even an idea...ah...but for you real art doesn't exist, right ? Come on amigo. You're out on an intellectual ledge and no one to hold your hand.

  • ."It has all to do with your chance to improve or being thrown out by the history." ...you said it...but maybe half the problem is your english.

    No, it is not my English, it is you not understanding context. So you can't grasp meaning.

    Most people speaking a 2nd language understand their limitations

    Let's agree that you also understand limitations of your present state grey cells, ok?

    And show me a link where you read that mordor embassy's have an order to burn everything....or is that one of your imaginary "sources" ?

    Are you well today? It is very famous 2017 story. Check the images and small video

    http://newsader.com/39103-dym-nad-dipzdaniyami-rf-v-ssha-izgonyaemy/

    " And Marat Sade was a seminal work. I actually saw it in the theater in about 1968....most likely before you were even an idea...ah...but for you real art doesn't exist, right ?

    For me shite is shite. Not knowing history and trying to piss on great events and great people is typical exactly for mental lilliputs.

    Come on amigo. You're out on an intellectual ledge and no one to hold your hand.

    Quite the reverse. Hence all this bravado and extremely low level of discussion, it sinks each time as your loose ground.

    Just make me sick to see the level discussion reaches on PV sometimes.

  • Vitaliy...so exactly what is the Level of discussion you are specting? Cos there are lots of intelligent people that won’t engage in that over here. It’s sad that people at your own website makes you sick.

  • well then your statement doesn't make sense...unless you're confusing me with the elites, which would be stupid. No...your written english is subpar. Sorry but that's alot of your problem...getting understood. And I'm not criticizing the effort. Speaking any other language is a great accomplishment....but sorry , fluency hasn't yet been attained. And really ....the truth is you imagine this little forum creation of yours as your domain where you're god. From my few minute a day , I'd guess you spend about 18 hours a day online, either maintaining your kingdom, or searching for information. 7 days a week. There was just an article about the the negative effects of too much. I'd recommend you shut off atleast by 2 in the afternoon. Your need to insult .....with always " your intellectual superiority" plainly noted, is sad. Because your great dream that your utopian communism based on your grade school indoctrination is about to rectify 200,000 years of society is fundamentally religious in nature. You're need to always be right...in every discussion I've ever witnessed with a hundred different individuals...is sad. Your need of dominion.....wow. Now we're cross posting. We should be posting in the eoshd thread...about similarities. adios