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A review by lubinka
Mark Twain's Helpful Hints for Good Living: A Handbook for the Damned Human Race by Lin Salamo, Mark Twain, Michael B. Frank, Victor Fischer
5.0
Although this book is not intended so much as a manual of helpful hints, but rather as a compilation of humorous and insightful short stories, essays, and observations, it contains many helpful advice of the kind that I generously like to bestow on my innocent and unsuspecting friends who never seem to appreciate my wisdom as much as it deserves, oftentimes to their own detriment.
I mostly enjoyed his views on parenting and raising an ethical child which I wish would be better absorbed by said child (alas, an elusive hope of any parent):
Always obey your parents, when they are present. This is the best policy in the long run; because if you don’t, they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do; and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgment. Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any; also to strangers, and sometimes to others. If a person offend you, and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures; simply watch your chance and hit him with a brick. That will be sufficient. If you shall find that he had not intended any offense, come out frankly and confess yourself in the wrong when you struck him; acknowledge it like a man, and say you didn’t mean to. Yes, always avoid violence; in this age of charity and kindliness, the time has gone by for such things. Leave dynamite to the low and unrefined.
Compared to the overly (and absolutely unnecessarily) verbose edition of his autobiography that I read last year and which was flooded with millions of insignificant trivialities, this book was a breath of fresh air.
I mostly enjoyed his views on parenting and raising an ethical child which I wish would be better absorbed by said child (alas, an elusive hope of any parent):
Always obey your parents, when they are present. This is the best policy in the long run; because if you don’t, they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do; and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgment. Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any; also to strangers, and sometimes to others. If a person offend you, and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures; simply watch your chance and hit him with a brick. That will be sufficient. If you shall find that he had not intended any offense, come out frankly and confess yourself in the wrong when you struck him; acknowledge it like a man, and say you didn’t mean to. Yes, always avoid violence; in this age of charity and kindliness, the time has gone by for such things. Leave dynamite to the low and unrefined.
Compared to the overly (and absolutely unnecessarily) verbose edition of his autobiography that I read last year and which was flooded with millions of insignificant trivialities, this book was a breath of fresh air.