"Notebook 18 (February–September 1879)" in Mark Twain's Notebooks & Journals, Vol. 2 (1975), ed. Frederick Anderson, ISBN 0520025423, p. 304
“The world's most funniest and easiest thing is to give an advice…”
Source: Adventures of a Mathematician - Third Edition (1991), Chapter 1, Childhood, p. 12
“The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become.”
“The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.”
Israel's Peculiar Position (1968)
Context: The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it, Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese — and no one says a word about refugees.
But in the case of Israel the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab.
Arnold J. Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace.
“You’re changing the course of history. I thought that sort of thing was strictly forbidden.”
Source: The Skin Map (2010), p. 65
“Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them.”
Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale
