A cold-blooded killer, Sherburn guns down the vocal but harmless drunkard Boggs for almost no reason at all, all of which Huck witnesses in horror. When a lynch mob sets out to avenge Boggs’ death, Sherburn calmly scorns the mob as being full of cowards and absolutely impotent. He is right: the mob, humiliated, disperses.
Colonel Sherburn Quotes in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn quotes below are all either spoken by Colonel Sherburn or refer to Colonel Sherburn. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 22
Quotes
“The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that’s what an army is—a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it, is beneath pitifulness.”
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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Colonel Sherburn Quotes in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn quotes below are all either spoken by Colonel Sherburn or refer to Colonel Sherburn. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 22
Quotes
“The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that’s what an army is—a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it, is beneath pitifulness.”
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis: