Taming the Bicycle

Taming the Bicycle by Mark Twain

I love this essay by Mark Twain, published in 1917 at the occasion of him learning to ride a Penny Farthing.

Full Text here

”...I have seen it stated that no expert is quick enough to run over a dog; that a dog is always able to skip out of his way. I think that that may be true; but I think that the reason he couldn't run over the dog was because he was trying to. I did not try to run over any dog. But I ran over every dog that came along. I think it makes a great deal of difference. If you try to run over the dog he knows how to calculate, but if you are trying to miss him he does not know how to calculate, and is liable to jump the wrong way every time. It was always so in my experience...”