This list has been compiled by Rush Utah and arranged chronologically. It is an on-going and growing list to demonstrate both the nice and the negative! It is up to each reader to decide the good from the bad and the ugly!

 

1861:

Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only 2 days...I was feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here–until I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically homely creatures.... The man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh sensure–and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity.... – Mark Twain

 

1863:

I have seen emigrants ships before this day in June. And these people are strikingly different from all other people in like circumstances whom I have ever seen, and I wondered aloud, what would a stranger suppose these emigrants to be? I should have said they were in their degree, the pick and flower of England. – Charles Dickens 

 

1872:

All men have heard of the Mormon Bible.... The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so slow, so sleepy, such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle–keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. – Mark Twain

 

1886:

It seems to me that the attitude of our Congress and people toward the Mormon Church is matter for limitless laughter and derision.... I shall probably always go on thinking that the attitude of our Congress and nation toward it is merely good trivial stuff to make fun of. Am I a friend to the Mormon religion? No. – Mark Twain 

 

1892:

If the people follow the teachings of this Church, nothing can stop their progress–it will be limitless. There have been great movements started in the past but they have died or been modified before they reached maturity. If Mormonism is able to endure, unmodified, until it reaches the third and fourth generation, it is destined to become the greatest power the world has ever known. – Leo Tolstoy

 

1957:

I have known many members of your Church, and I have never known one who was not a good citizen and a fine, wholesome person, but David O. McKay embodies, more than anyone that I have ever known, the virtues and the drawing power of your Church. David McKay, almost thou persuadest me to be a Mormon! – Cecil B. DeMille

 

1982:

The Mormon contribution to American life is beyond measure. They are the contributions of love and joy, of faith and family, of work and community. They are a dedication to the values that are at the heart of free nations...and they are a Faith in the promise of tomorrow. – Ronald Reagan

 

2007:

The Mormon religion takes care of its own. They don't have people on welfare. – Barbara Bush

I have a cousin who is a Mormon and she married one of the Marriott family. I don't know anyone who's more devout in their faith.... I admire them very much. – Jimmy Carter

 

2007:

Romney comes from a religion founded by a criminal who was anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist. – Lawrence O'Donnell

Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers? – Mike Huckabee

 

2009:

The truth is a lot of Mormons gave a lot of money to the Church to make Prop-8 happen. There are a lot of people who feel that is un-American and I am one of them. – Tom Hanks

 

2012:

As first lady, if you get the job [Ann Romney], its going to entail a lot of things. And one of those things is going to be talking to the mothers whose children are coming home in bags, you know, from wars. Now I know, I believe, that your religion doesn't allow you to go fight. I say that because when I read about your husband [Mitt Romney] ...the reason that he didn't serve in Vietnam was because it was against the religion. – Whoopi Goldberg 

I just heard this the other day. The Mormons, Mitt Romney's crew, they believed black people were the devil til 1978. 78! I'm not making this up! – Chris Rock