Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.

The sentence comes from the conclusion of The Innocents Abroad, Twain’s account of the Quaker City pleasure cruise to Europe and the Holy Land in 1867. Looking back, he explains why it succeeded: the passengers unpacked their trunks only twice, chose their companions among “old, tried friends”, and found in the ship a home to return to after every land journey. Then comes the line: many of his countrymen need travel sorely on that account, for broad and charitable views “can not be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime”. The next words close the book: “The Excursion is ended.”

Twain, then a journalist of thirty-one, sailed as correspondent for a San Francisco newspaper and reworked his letters into the book, published by subscription in 1869. It was the best-selling of his books in his lifetime, and it made his name.

The line is quoted approvingly by travel writers, who sometimes forget how much of the book laughs at the pilgrims and at Twain himself.

The Innocents Abroad, conclusion, 1869

Checked word for word in the work itself.

Read the passage in the work