“Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world – and never will.”
-Mark Twain
Freedom begins with keeping an open mind.
On Keeping an Open Mind and Freeing a Human Soul
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Category Archives: Mark Twain on Religion
On Confusing Belief with Truth and Repition with Examination
“In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing”
-Mark Twain, Autobiography
I know its true ‘cause I just read it on a blog and heard Rush Limbaugh talk about it.
On the Value of Questioning Authority
“Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense”
-Mark Twain
Any power, belief, idea, or proclamation can only prove its worth through contempt and, if worthwhile and right, redemption.
It is by trial that our characters, and our ideas, or forged.
On Religion, Folly, and Letting People Be
“The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. I would not interfere with any one’s religion, either to strengthen it or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one’s religion can affect his hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion may be. But it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life–hence it is a valuable possession to him.”
I am certain that your particular religion must be folly, for I fear mine may be as well. And I also fear anyone that denies this is so.