Wordplay & Puns · 2026-11-01
What right has Goethe, what right has Arnold, what right
What right has Goethe, what right has Arnold, what right has any dictionary, to define the word Irreverence for me? What their ideals are is nothing to me. So long as I reverence my own ideals my whole duty is done, and I commit no profanation if I laugh at theirs. I may scoff at other people's ideals as much as I want to. It is my right and my privilege. No man has any right to deny it.
Classic source: Quotations from Mark Twain (1910), public-domain text.