
“The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of cause.”
Source: The Legacy of Heorot (1987), Chapter 22 “The Last Grendel” (p. 231; quoting William James)
Source: Goldfinger (1959), Ch. 8 : All To Play For
“The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of cause.”
Source: The Legacy of Heorot (1987), Chapter 22 “The Last Grendel” (p. 231; quoting William James)
Letter to E.L. Godkin (24 December 1895)
1890s
Letter to George Bainton, 15 October 1888, solicited for and printed in George Bainton, The Art of Authorship: Literary Reminiscences, Methods of Work, and Advice to Young Beginners (1890), pp. 87–88 http://books.google.com/books?id=XjBjzRN71_IC&pg=PA87.
Twain repeated the lightning bug/lightning comparison in several contexts, and credited Josh Billings for the idea:
Josh Billings defined the difference between humor and wit as that between the lightning bug and the lightning.
Speech at the 145th annual dinner of St. Andrew's Society, New York, 30 November 1901, Mark Twain Speaking (1976), ed. Paul Fatout, p. 424
Billings' original wording was characteristically affected:
Don't mistake vivacity for wit, thare iz about az mutch difference az thare iz between lightning and a lightning bug.
Josh Billings' Old Farmer's Allminax, "January 1871" http://books.google.com/books?id=sUI1AAAAMAAJ&pg=PT30. Also in Everybody's Friend, or; Josh Billing's Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor (1874), p. 304 http://books.google.com/books?id=7rA8AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA304
Source: The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain
Remarks at Human Rights Day event http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/121086a.htm (10 December 1986)
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)
Variant translations:
Virtue and vice are not the same, even if they undergo the same torment.
The violence which assails good men to test them, to cleanse and purify them, effects in the wicked their condemnation, ruin, and annihilation.
The City of God (early 400s)
Context: Wherefore, though good and bad men suffer alike, we must not suppose that there is no difference between the men themselves, because there is no difference in what they both suffer. For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers; and though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that in the same affliction the wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good pray and praise. So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odor.
What Every Man Wants in a Woman: 10 Essentials for Growing Deeper in Love
Charisma House
Lake Mary, Fla.
December 2004
978-1591855576
124084413
http://books.google.com/books?id=blrTAAAACAAJ
“Between good sense and good taste there lies the difference between a cause and its effect.”
Entre le bon sens et le bon goût il y a la différence de la cause à son effet.
Aphorism 56
Les Caractères (1688), Des jugements
“The difference between treason and patriotism is only a matter of dates.”
Source: The Count of Monte Cristo