“ but a nobleman is not valuable because he is a jackass. ”
Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889). copy citation
| Author | Mark Twain |
|---|---|
| Source | A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
| Topic | |
| Date | 1889 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/86/86-h/86-h.htm |
Context
“But I lost the thread there, and dozed off to slumber, thinking about what a pity it was that men with such superb strength—strength enabling them to stand up cased in cruelly burdensome iron and drenched with perspiration, and hack and batter and bang each other for six hours on a stretch—should not have been born at a time when they could put it to some useful purpose. Take a jackass, for instance: a jackass has that kind of strength, and puts it to a useful purpose, and is valuable to this world because he is a jackass; but a nobleman is not valuable because he is a jackass. It is a mixture that is always ineffectual, and should never have been attempted in the first place. And yet, once you start a mistake, the trouble is done and you never know what is going to come of it.”
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