Be Charitable Towards One Another’s Lunacies

In Mark Twain’s characteristic sarcastic wit he called for civility and charity between those who differ in their religious and political perspectives:

All My Adversaries Are Insane

"When I, a thoughtful and unbiased Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious matters. When a thoughtful and unbiased Mohammedan examines the Westminster Catechism, he knows that beyond any question I am spiritually insane. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can prove anything to a lunatic-—for that is part of his insanity and the evidence of it. He cannot prove to me that I am insane, for my mind has the same defect that afflicts his.
"All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it; none but the Republicans and the Mugwumps know it. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats and Mugwumps can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane. When I look around me, I am often troubled to see how many people are mad...This should move us to be charitable towards one another’s lunacies."

-- Mark Twain, What Is Man?: and Other Philosophical Writings
(Works of Mark Twain, Vol 19)
Samuel Langhorne CLEMENS, 1835-1910

"I, like all other human beings, expose to the world only my trimmed and perfumed and carefully barbered public opinions and conceal carefully, cautiously, wisely, my private ones."

-- Mark Twain in Eruption