Quote of the Day (Mark Twain, on “The Tyranny of Party”)

“Look at the tyranny of party -- at what is called party allegiance, party loyalty -- a snare invented by designing men for selfish purposes -- and which turns voters into chattles, slaves, rabbits, and all the while their masters, and they themselves are shouting rubbish about liberty, independence, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, honestly unconscious of the fantastic contradiction; and forgetting or ignoring that their fathers and the churches shouted the same blasphemies a generation earlier when they were closing their doors against the hunted slave, beating his handful of humane defenders with Bible texts and billies, and pocketing the insults and licking the shoes of his Southern master.”—Mark Twain, "The Character of Man," from Mark Twain's Autobiography

The funny, wise—and great—American novelist was born on this date in 1835. A century after his death, he remains all too relevant.