Quotation by Mark Twain

Nations do not think, they only feel. They get their feelings at second hand through their temperaments, not their brains. A nation can be brought—by force of circumstances, not argument—to reconcile itself to any kind of government or religion that can be devised; in time it will fit itself to the required conditions; later it will prefer them and will fiercely fight for them.
Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910), U.S. author. repr. In Complete Essays, ed. Charles Neider (1963). Old man, in What Is Man? sct. 6 (1906).
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