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When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.
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“When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.”

Mark Twain

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Source
Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar
Date
1894
Local voice
Epigraph / fictional source voice · Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar
Meaning

Meaning of “When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable…”

The joke turns the conventional promise of a better afterlife into self-interested moral calculation: the speaker suddenly worries about spending eternity with people he already disliked.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Pudd’nhead Wilson, Calendar epigraph preceding the October speculation maxim.

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Speaker context

Why the local voice matters

Twain presents this wording as a chapter-epigraph Calendar maxim. The Calendar is a fictional framing device / source voice rather than uncomplicated autobiography by Twain.

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AttitudeFunnyGrowthHumilityLifeLife AdviceSelf ImprovementDeath
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Source identified
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
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“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”

Mark Twain · Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar · 1894
Voice: Epigraph / fictional source voice · Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar
Meaning & context

The epigram satirizes the irritation produced when another person’s good conduct silently exposes our own shortcomings, making moral example feel inconvenient rather than inspiring.

Source details

Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter XIX epigraph; one of the Calendar maxims before the chapter.

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Source identified
Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things.
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“Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things.”

William James · The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy · 1897
Meaning & context

James resists treating every possible intellectual mistake as catastrophic, because an excessive fear of error can itself prevent inquiry, experience and the possibility of gaining truth.

Source details

The Will to Believe, essay “The Will to Believe”; Project Gutenberg #26659. James is contrasting the risk of being mistaken with the cost of refusing every uncertain intellectual venture.

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Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.
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“Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”

Oscar Wilde · The Picture of Dorian Gray — 1891 edition · 1891
Voice: Narrator voice · Narrator, focalized through Lord Henry
Meaning & context

The wit turns “experience” into a retrospective label for errors, suggesting that mistakes become useful only when understood.

Source details

The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 edition, Chapter 4; third-person narration focalized through Lord Henry reflects that experience is the name people give to their mistakes.

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If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
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“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”

Francis Bacon · The Advancement of Learning · 1605
Meaning & context

Intellectual confidence can be improved by beginning with questions rather than pretending certainty too early.

Source details

The Advancement of Learning, First Book, Project Gutenberg #5500, transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition. Bacon contrasts impatience of doubt with mature suspension of judgment and then sets out two ways of contemplation before saying that beginning with certainties ends in doubts while beginning with doubts can end in certainties. It remains early-modern epistemological argument rather than a modern experimental rule for scientific method.

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experience, intellectual attainments, the practice of seeing to the bottom of things, and so a perfect mental vision, form in themselves a mass which continues to increase in size
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“experience, intellectual attainments, the practice of seeing to the bottom of things, and so a perfect mental vision, form in themselves a mass which continues to increase in size”

Arthur Schopenhauer · Counsels and Maxims · 1851
Meaning & context

Schopenhauer describes accumulated experience and practiced inquiry as resources that can continue growing even while other capacities change with age.

Source details

Counsels and Maxims, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10715. The passage appears in an age-related comparison of intellectual powers and accumulated material.

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by the constant growth of insight and knowledge, this intellectual life, like a slowly-forming work of art, will acquire a consistency, a permanent intensity, a unity which becomes ever more and more complete
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“by the constant growth of insight and knowledge, this intellectual life, like a slowly-forming work of art, will acquire a consistency, a permanent intensity, a unity which becomes ever more and more complete”

Arthur Schopenhauer · The Wisdom of Life · 1851
Meaning & context

The image treats intellectual development as cumulative craftsmanship: insight and knowledge gradually produce greater coherence instead of appearing as a single finished achievement.

Source details

The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. The simile compares a developing intellectual life with a slowly formed work of art.

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