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 #2 (permalink) Tue Aug 15, 2006 21:46 pm Insane versus Idiot |
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Hi Tom
I see you're working on Sam quotes now. ;)
He's spoken to "officially" insane people only once --- the people in the insane asylum he visited. But plenty of "normal" people act just as crazy and idiotic as the "officially" insane.
Amy
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| #3 (permalink) Wed Aug 16, 2006 14:38 pm Insane versus Idiot |
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Amy
:D What are Sam quotes?
By the way, Amy, I would like to ask another question regarding the quote: I just want to make sure if I got it correctly.
Is it a sarcasm? Is the author trying to say that those outside the asylum and those who are inside it (inmates), have only one difference between them--that is, the ones inside are officially insane and the ones outside are unofficially idiots/ insane.Do we agree?
Tom |
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 Tom
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| #4 (permalink) Wed Aug 16, 2006 15:15 pm Insane |
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Hi Tom,
The quote comes from the American humorist who wrote under the pen name of Mark Twain
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Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American humorist, novelist, writer, and lecturer.
Although Twain was confounded by financial and business affairs, his humor and wit were keen, and he enjoyed immense public popularity. At his peak, he was probably the most popular American celebrity of his time. In 1907, crowds at the Jamestown Exposition thronged just to get a glimpse of him. He had dozens of famous friends, including William Dean Howells, Booker T. Washington, Nikola Tesla, Helen Keller, and Henry Huttleston Rogers. Fellow American author William Faulkner is credited with writing that Twain was "the first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs." Twain died in 1910 and is buried in Elmira, New York. |
It is a sort of sarcasm but it's more elevated and drier than that. I would have said wit and satire.
Anyhow you seem to have got the gist of it in your summary.
Alan
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Alan
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| #5 (permalink) Wed Aug 16, 2006 16:12 pm Insane versus Idiot |
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Hi Tom
More quotes from Sam (on the same topic):
The way it is now, the asylums can hold the sane people, but if we tried to shut up the insane we should run out of building materials.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. 
Amy
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Yankee
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| #6 (permalink) Wed Aug 16, 2006 16:29 pm Madness |
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Hi Tom,
Read this today in a national newspaper:
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Being mad does not always get you sent to an institution. Sometimes it gets you to the very top of your profession.
Experts believe that millions of us are, at least to some extent, displaying the signs of madness |
Alan
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