Mark Twain’s Happiness
‘Humor is the great thing,’ wrote Mark Twain.’The saving thing.’ The irreverent satirist blazed a wayward path that happiness gurus should not ignore.
Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.
“There’s a scurrilous rumour abroad, on self-improvement websites, that Mark Twain is the source of the simpering fridge-magnet quotation. … Even the genuine Twainisms recycled in countless self-help books—’Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter’—aren’t his best. I think I know why. Popular psychology, these days, is a strikingly earnest field; acerbic wit is largely the preserve of cynics who scoff at self-help. It’s bizarre: all these grinning gurus preaching happiness, yet without much sense of humour. Twain proved that needn’t be so: you can dispense real, uncynical life-wisdom, and still be hilarious.”
Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.
