"It is not like studying German, where..." - Quote by Mark Twain
It is not like studying German, where you mull along, in a groping, uncertain way, for thirty years; and at last, just as you think you've got it, they spring the subjunctive on you, and there you are. No- and I see now plainly enough, that the great pity about the German language is, that you can't fall off it and hurt yourself. There is nothing like that feature to make you attend strictly to business.
More by Mark Twain
More on Language
“A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.”
“I never write "metropolis" for seven cents when I can write "city" and get paid the same.”
“Every adjective and adverb is worth five cents. Every verb is worth fifty cents.”
More on German
“There is plenty of Hühnerfleisch in the Kühlschrank. (There is plenty of chicken in the fridge).”
“It is love, and not German philosophy, that is the true explanation of the world, whatever may be the explanation of the next.”
“One is conscious of no brave and noble earnestness in it, of no generalized passion for intellectual and spiritual adventure, of no organized determination to think things out. What is there is a highly self-conscious and insipid correctness, a bloodless respectability submergence of matter in manner--in brief, what is there is the feeble, uninspiring quality of German painting and English music.”