Mark Twain and religion

Published 9:00 pm Friday, March 24, 2006

Some musings by Mark Twain on religion from various sources:

* “Ah, well, I am a great and sublime fool. But then I am God’s fool, and all His works must be contemplated with respect.” 1878 Twain letter to William Dean Howells.

* “Be good and you will be lonesome.” From “Following the Equator.”

* “I notice that God is on both sides in this war; thus history repeats itself. But I am the only person who has noticed this; everybody here thinks He is playing the game for this side and for this side only.” 1900 Twain letter to William Dean Howells.

* “What a hell of a heaven it will be when they get all these hypocrites assembled there!” 1901 Twain letter to Joe Twichell.

* “I have never seen what to me seemed an atom of truth that there is a future life … and yet – I am strongly inclined to expect one.” From “Mark Twain, a Biography.”

* “I believe in God the Almighty. I do not believe He has ever sent a message to man by anybody, or delivered one to him by word of mouth, or made Himself visible to mortal eyes at any time or in any place.” From “What Is Man? And Other Philosophical Writings.”

* “The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” From “Mark Twain, a Biography.”

* “I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious – except he purposely shut the eyes of his mind and keep them shut by force.” From “Mark Twain’s Notebooks and Journals.”

* “Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes, and wishes he was certain.” From “Mark Twain’s Notebook.”

* “Man is the Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion – several of them.” From “Letters from the Earth.”

Associated Press