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Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. It is a philosophical razor that suggests a way of eliminating unlikely explanations for human behavior. It is probably named after Robert J. Hanlon, who submitted the statement to Murphy's Law Book Two: More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong!
Mark Twain popularized the saying in Chapters from My Autobiography, published in the North American Review in 1907. "Figures often beguile me," Twain wrote, "particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'" [4] [1] [2]
On the Decay of the Art of Lying" is a short essay written by Mark Twain in 1880 for a meeting of the Historical and Antiquarian Club of Hartford, Connecticut. Twain published the text in The Stolen White Elephant Etc. (1882). [1] [2] In the essay, Twain laments the four ways in which men of America's Gilded Age employ man's 'most faithful ...
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), [1] known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist.He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," [2] with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature."
Chapters from My Autobiography are 25 pieces of autobiographical work published by American author Mark Twain in the North American Review between September 1906 and December 1907. Rather than following the standard form of an autobiography, they comprise a rambling collection of anecdotes and ruminations.
The claim: Mark Twain said, 'I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.' After the death of conservative media personality Rush Limbaugh on Feb. 17, some ...
Letters from the Earth is a posthumously published work of American author Mark Twain (1835–1910) collated by Bernard DeVoto. [2] [1] It comprises essays written during a difficult time in Twain's life (1904–1909), when he was deeply in debt and had recently lost his wife and one of his daughters. [3]
James Fenimore Cooper in an 1822 portrait. Everett Emerson (in Mark Twain: A Literary Life) wrote that the essay is "possibly the author's funniest". [6] Joseph Andriano, in The Mark Twain Encyclopedia, argued that Twain "Imposed the standards of Realism on Romance" and that this incongruity is a major source of the humor in the essay.