WISDOM OF MARK TWAIN - Part 5

TWAIN, MARK

(Samuel Langhorne Clemens)

American author,

journalist, humorist

(1835-1910)

Many quotations have been attributed to Twain that came from other sources. If you find I have wrongly attributed a quotation to Twain, please leave a comment or email me at mythoughtsarefree@gmail.com. Thank you.

• “The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.” (Christian Science)

• “When I think of the number of disagreeable people that I know who have gone to a better world, I am sure hell won’t be so bad at all.” (Jon Winokur, The Portable Curmudgeon)

• “When in doubt, tell the truth.” (Following the Equator, 1897)

• “When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.” (Mark Twain’s Notebook)

• “You can’t pray a lie.” (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1885)

• “You want me to believe it is a judicious, a charitable God that runs this world. Why I could run it better myself.” (Clara Clemens, My Father Mark Twain)

• “Zeal and sincerity can carry a new religion further than any other missionary except fire and sword.” (Christian Science)

• "India has two million gods, and worships them all. In religion all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire." (Following the Equator)

• “Alas! those good old days are gone, when a murderer could wipe the stain from his name and soothe his trouble to sleep simply by getting out his blocks and mortar and building an addition to a church.”  (The Innocents Abroad)

• “A religion that comes of thought, and study, and deliberate conviction, sticks best. The revivalized convert who is scared in the direction of heaven because he sees hell yawn suddenly behind him, not only regains confidence when his scare is over, but is ashamed of himself for being scared, and often becomes more hopelessly and malignantly wicked than he was before.” (Letter San Francisco Alta California, November 15, 1868) 

• “The gods offer no rewards for intellect. There was never one yet that showed any interest in it...”  (Mark Twain's Notebook)

Read more about Mark Twain & his religious skepticism at the end of:

WISDOM OF MARK TWAIN - Part 1

Find more quotations at the above post and these:

WISDOM OF MARK TWAIN - Part 2

WISDOM OF MARK TWAIN - Part 3

WISDOM OF MARK TWAIN - Part 4

WISDOM OF MARK TWAIN - Part 2

TWAIN, MARK

(Samuel Langhorne Clemens)

American author,

journalist, humorist

(1835-1910)

Many quotations have been attributed to Twain that came from other sources. If you find I have wrongly attributed a quotation to Twain, please leave a comment or email me at mythoughtsarefree@gmail.com. Thank you.

• “He had no principles and was delightful company.” 

• “Heaven for climate; Hell for society.” (Mark Twain's Speeches, 1910 edition)

• “Heaven goes by favor; if it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.” (Mark Twain, a Biography)

• “Human beings seem to be a poor invention. If they are the noblest work of God where is the ignoblest?” (Mark Twain’s Notebook)

• “I am a great and sublime fool. But then I am God’s fool, and all His works must be contemplated with respect.” (Letter to William Dean Howells, December 1977)

• “I believe that our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey.” (Autobiographical dictation, November 1906)

• “I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the things which were sacred to other people.” (Is Shakespeare Dead?)

• “If Christ were here now, there is one thing he would not be ---a Christian.” (Mark Twain’s Notebook)

• “If I can’t swear in heaven I shall not stay there.” (Mark Twain’s Notebook)

• “If man had created man he would be ashamed of his performance.” (Mark Twain’s Notebook)

• “...I haven’t a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices.” (Answers to Correspondents)

• [To a Catholic convert, 1885] “I look back with the same shuddering horror upon the days when I believed I believed, as you do upon the days when you were afraid you did not believe.”

• “In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.” (Pudd'nhead Wilson, 1894)

• “It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”

• “It is best to read the weather forecast before praying for rain.” (Mark Twain’s Notebook)

• “It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either one of them.” (More Tramps Abroad)

• “It is curious ---curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage be so rare.” (Mark Twain in Eruption)

• “It is not best that we use our morals week days; it gets them out of repair for Sundays.“ (Mark Twain’s Notebook)

• "The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same; but the medical practice changes...The world has corrected the Bible. The church never corrects it; and also never fails to drop in at the tail of the procession- and take the credit of the correction. During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. the Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry.....There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them remain."  ("Bible Teaching and Religious Practice" Europe and Elsewhere)

Read more about Mark Twain & his religious skepticism at the end of:

WISDOM OF MARK TWAIN - Part 1

Find more quotations at the above post and these:

WISDOM OF MARK TWAIN - Part 3

WISDOM OF MARK TWAIN - Part 4

WISDOM OF MARK TWAIN - Part 5

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

When asked, "Do you support religious freedom?" 

Madalyn Murray O'Hair responded,

        "Oh, absolutely! I feel that everyone has a right to be insane. And that they can do this any place at all. If they want religious schools, build them! My only problem with that is, do not ask for the land to be tax-free. Do not ask for a government grant to build them. Do not ask for money for teacher's salaries, or more books, or anything else. Just go ahead and do your thing, and do it yourself. Just exactly the same as if you were a nudist. Somebody doesn't get a tax break for being a Mason, or whatever they're interested in. [Interview in Freedom Writer magazine, March 1989]

EVERETT DEAN MARTIN

MARTIN, EVERETT DEAN, American writer, (1880-1941)*

    • “In the Twentieth Century, every person who achieves self-criticism or discrimination in matters of thought, intellectual honesty, and skepticism of popular slogans, is really a friend of liberty.” (Liberty, 1930)
    • “Christian liberty is a contradiction in terms. It means nothing more than the liberty to be a Christian ... And even this could scarcely be called liberty, for it has never been left to choice when the church has had power enough to coerce men into conformity.”
    • “Christianity... has brought about stagnation wherever it has been supreme.” (Liberty, 1930)
    • “Has not official Christianity been almost uniformly on the reactionary side in the struggle for freedom and progress? Has it not time and again instigated bloodshed and persecution? Has it not sought to give the authority of God to precisely the most oppressive governments in Europe, and divine blessing to armies marching out to kill and oppress? Why, there is not a single freedom modern man enjoys that he has not won in defiance of the churches!” (Liberty, 1930)
    • “Morality cannot exist one minute without freedom... Only a free man can possibly be moral. Unless a good deed is voluntary, it has no moral significance.” (Liberty, 1930)
    • "Our people have little of the philosophy of freedom. . . . The things which we take for granted are the things for which we no longer fight. But when a populace becomes indifferent to its freedom, it begins to lose it." (as quoted in Time, “On Keeping Free”, 06/09/1930)
    • “Since October, 1917, revolutionary movements, whether Communist, Fascist or Nazi, are arrayed against precisely those objectives which have inspired revolutions since 1642. Present-day revolution is therefore a crowd movement against liberal democracy. It openly avows itself as such and in this respect both the Communist and the Fascist are the same. (Farewell to Revolution, 1935)
    • "Tolerance is a better guarantee of freedom than brotherly love; for a man may love his brother so much that he feels himself thereby appointed his brother’s keeper." (Liberty, 1930)

*READ MORE:
Archived Time article about Everett Dean Martin, 06/09/1930

The article describes Martin in 1930:
Everett Dean Martin, 50, tall, loose-jointed, has poppy, kindly eyes, a mouth like Irvin Cobb's. He became associated with the People's Institute in 1916, was made Director in 1922. Other books: The Behavior of Crowds, Psychology, The Meaning of a Liberal Education, The Mystery of Religion.

In 1930, Martin’s book Liberty was selling new for $3. It is still available at amazon.com for about the same price (used) plus shipping. This is a great book. A friend of mine loaned it to me about 30 years ago. I had never heard of Martin before that. I am surprised he is not better known because what he wrote in 1930 is still relevant today.