“ Are you so unobservant as not to have found out that sanity and happiness are an impossible combination? ”
Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger (1916). copy citation
| Author | Mark Twain |
|---|---|
| Source | The Mysterious Stranger |
| Topic | happiness sanity |
| Date | 1916 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3186/3186-h/3186-h.htm |
Context
“«But the method of it, Satan, the method! Couldn't you have done it without depriving him of his reason?»
It was difficult to irritate Satan, but that accomplished it.
«What an ass you are!» he said. «Are you so unobservant as not to have found out that sanity and happiness are an impossible combination? No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what a fearful thing it is. Only the mad can be happy, and not many of those. The few that imagine themselves kings or gods are happy, the rest are no happier than the sane.” source
It was difficult to irritate Satan, but that accomplished it.
«What an ass you are!» he said. «Are you so unobservant as not to have found out that sanity and happiness are an impossible combination? No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what a fearful thing it is. Only the mad can be happy, and not many of those. The few that imagine themselves kings or gods are happy, the rest are no happier than the sane.” source
Meaning and analysis
