What is difference between the Amish and the Mennonites?

What's the difference between the Amish and the Mennonites?
—Anonymous

The simple answer is that while all Amish are Mennonites, not all Mennonites are Amish. The Amish are a subgroup of the Mennonites. After that it gets more complicated, as with trying to sum up any group of people based on religious beliefs, you are left with the not very helpful "there are as many different Mennonites as there are people who are Mennonites."

As a quick reference guide, in Lydia Gilmore's book, Rumspringa and Coke (2000), she sums it up this way: "If you think in terms of motorcycles, and people are 'people who ride motorcycles,' then Christians are Bikers, Mennonites are Outlaw Bikers, and the Amish are the Hell's Angels."

This might not, however, be an analogy popular with the Amish and the Mennonites.