There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.
- Mark Twain

There is one notable thing about our Christianity: bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing and predatory as it is - in our country particularly, and in all other Christian countries in a somewhat modified degree - it is still a hundred times better than the Christianity of the Bible, with its prodigious crime - the invention of Hell. Measured by our Christianity of to-day, bad as it is, hypocritical as it is, empty and hollow as it is, neither the Deity nor His Son is a Christian, nor qualified for that moderately high place. Ours is a terrible religion. The fleets of the world could swim in spacious comfort in the innocent blood it has spilt.
- Mark Twain

There isn't anything you can't stand, if you are only born and bred to it.
- Mark Twain

These people's God has shown them by a million acts that he respects none of the Bible's statues. He breaks every one of them himself, adultery and all.
- Mark Twain

This is a Christian country. Why, so is hell. Inasmuch as "Strait is the way and narrow is the gate, and few-few-are they that enter in thereat" has had the natural effect of making hell the only really prominent Christian community in any of the worlds; but we don't brag of this and certainly it is not proper to brag and boast that America is a Christian country when we all know that certainly five-sixths of our population could not enter in at the narrow gate.
- Mark Twain

This poor little one-horse town. (The Undertaker's Story)
- Mark Twain

To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman.
- Mark Twain

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education. (Pudd'nhead Wilson)
- Mark Twain

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain

We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles.
- Mark Twain