The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Quotes
Shmoop will make you a better lover...of quotes
ALL QUOTES POPULAR BROWSE BY AUTHOR BROWSE BY SOURCE BROWSE BY TOPIC BROWSE BY SUBJECT
Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Author: Mark Twain
"Human beings can be awful cruel to one another."
And as we struck into the town and up through the—here comes a raging rush of people with torches, and an awful whooping and yelling, and banging tin pans and blowing horns; and we jumped to one side to let them go by; and as they went by I see they had the king and the duke astraddle of a rail—that is, I knowed it WAS the king and the duke, though they was all over tar and feathers, and didn't look like nothing in the world that was human—just looked like a couple of monstrous big soldier-plumes. Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn't ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.
Context
This line is from the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), written by Mark Twain.
This quote pops up near the end of Huck's adventures. You might think, after spending a whole book helping a runaway slave named Jim find his way up North, Huck might be reflecting on the cruelty of slavery at this point. You'd be wrong.
Huck sees two con men—the King and the Duke—being tarred and feathered by some villagers. These are the same guys who kidnapped Jim and sold him for $40 to some other dude. They're huge jerks and they probably deserve to be roughed up a little. But, Huck feels sorry for them anyway.
Maybe this is a credit to him. Even though he totally hates these guys, he still thinks they didn't deserve a punishment so awful. People are people. Even if they're slaves, right?
Where you've heard it
Folks can be mean sometimes. That's just the truth. You'll probably hear people sharing this quote when the meanies are out in full bloom.
A New York Times opinion piece made use of this quote to defend the humanity of the youth of America.
Pretentious Factor
If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.
The truth is never pretentious, and Huck Finn is about the least pretentious guy around. Mark Twain is a master at getting down to the cold hard facts about the way some folks behave towards others.