I need the source (ie the piece of work and the date) for the following
Mark Twain quote: "A man who carries a cat by the tail learns
something he can learn in no other way."

Hello.

The web site Twainquotes.com has a more accurate version of the quote
and cites "Tom Sawywer Abroad":

"...the person that had took a bull by the tail once had learnt sixty
or seventy times as much as a person that hadn't, and said a person
that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was getting knowledge
that was always going to be useful to him, and warn't ever going to
grow dim or doubtful..."
-Tom Sawyer Abroad"
http://www.twainquotes.com/Cats.html

The same citation is given on the web page, "Cat quotes."
http://www.angelfire.com/wv/chessie0/cat.html


Indeed, a quick search of "Tom Sawyer Abroad" establishes that the
quote does indeed originate in that text:

"But, on the other hand, Uncle Abner said that the person that had
took a bull by the tail once had learnt sixty or seventy times as much
as a person that hadn't, and said a person that started in to carry a
cat home by the tail was gitting knowledge that was always going to be
useful to him, and warn't ever
going to grow dim or doubtful."
source: TOM SAWYER ABROAD by MARK TWAIN [Samuel Clemens, 1894], hosted
by ibiblio.org
http://ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext93/sawy210.txt

search strategy:
twain quotes, cats

I hope this helps.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by dtrmnd-ga on 18 Jul 2003 15:02 PDT

Thanks for doing what you did, but I'm not sure whether the quote you
located is a "more accurate version" of the one I'm looking for, or
simply another quote. I wonder if there's a way to find this out, as
the one I asked about seems more commonly cited (which may not mean
much, I know, but it is more suitable for my purposes).
Thanks

---

Clarification of Answer by juggler-ga on 18 Jul 2003 15:29 PDT

Well, I see your point, but the "Tom Sawywer Abroad" is something that
Twain actually wrote, and I am 100% sure that it is the right quote.

The "commonly quoted" version that you see on all those web pages is
undoubtedly a  misquote. I combed through dozens of those web pages
and not a single one of them cites a source.

Mark Twain is one of the world's most misquoted individuals. There are
hundreds of quotes floating around out there that are attributed to
Mark Twain that he either  never said or said in a different way.  See
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/twain.htm

Again what Mark Twain wrote was " a person that started in to carry a
cat home by the tail was getting knowledge that was always going to be
useful to him."

  That obviously evolved into the "more commonly cited" version that
you mention, as well as other variations:

 "The man who sets out to carry a cat by the tail learns something
that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful."
--Mark Twain
http://www.iankahn.com/quotations/twain.htm

Mark Twain once said (roughly) "a man who picks up a cat by the tail
will learn a lesson that he will never forget."
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/03/23/111213.shtml

"If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any
other way."
http://www.quotedb.com/quote.php?quoteid=1093

Dozens more variations:
twain, "cat by its tail"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=twain+%22cat+by+its+tail%22
twain, "cat by the tail"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=twain+%22cat+by+the+tail%22

Now, obviously, Mark Twain didn't say all of those different
variations. They are simply misquotes of what he wrote in "Tom Sawyer
Abroad."

I hope this helps. I'm sorry if this isn't the answer that you wanted,
but I'm am confident that it is the right answer.

Nice work. I do beg to differ, however, with your comment that
'obviously' Twain didn't write variations of the comment. It isn't
quite obvious to me; this is just what academics do all the time. But
since the 'accurate' quote is the one traceable (online) to a Twain
text, I'll use that one. And thanks again.

Thank you for the tip.
-juggler