Today's Google doodle honors Mark Twain's 176th birthday
There’s always an excuse to honor Mark Twain, even if it’s just him turning 176. Which is why today’s Google Doodle does just that.
The doodle depicts the famous fence whitewashing scene from Twain’s classic 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The design, which spans the length of Google’s homepage, shows Sawyer’s friends painting Google’s logo onto the iconic fence.
(PHOTOS: A History of Google Doodles)
Though he died in 1910, Twain’s status as an American humorist and author endures through his prodigious body of work.
Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, also had an affinity for irony that was reflected in life and death — his grave is marked by a 12-foot (i.e., two fathoms, or “mark twain”) monument and his birth and death both coincided almost exactly with the rare Halley’s Comet.
Seeing as any summation of Twain’s life and legacy wouldn’t do him justice, NewsFeed will instead offer a sampling of the wisest and wittiest of his famed one-liners:
“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
“The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.”
“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”
“The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.”
And with that, we, along with Google, salute a true American classic.