Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes

If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant.

It is better to deserve without receiving than to receive without deserving

Diderot took the ground that, if orthodox religion be true Christ was guilty of suicide. Having the power to defend himself he should have used it.

As long as every question is answered by the word "God," scientific inquiry is simply impossible.

God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race.

The few have said, Think! The many have said, Believe! The first doubt was the womb and cradle of progress, and from the first doubt, man has continued to advance.

The record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our dead, and every sweet unselfish act is now a perfumed flower.

Science built the Academy, superstition the Inquisition.

Cruelty hardens and degrades, kindness reforms and ennobles.

The Church says the Earth is flat. But I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow on the Moon. And I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church.

In a world of cruelty, sympathy is a crime, and in a world of lies, truth is blasphemy.

If the Bible is true, it needs no inspiration, and - if not true, inspiration can do it no good.

Fear paints pictures of ghosts and hangs them in the gallery of ignorance.

Insolence is not logic; epithets are the arguments of malice.

If all the historic books of the Bible were blotted from the memory of mankind, nothing of value would be lost.

In all ages, hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves, called kings.

I will follow my logic, no matter where it goes, after it has consulted with my heart. If you ever come to a conclusion without calling the heart in, you will come to a bad conclusion.

Too much doubt is better than too much credulity.

Religion has not civilized man, man has civilized religion.

The church teaches us that we can make God happy by being miserable ourselves.

Think of the egotism of a man who believes that an infinite being wants his praise!

Courage without conscience is a wild beast.

When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death - that is heroism.

There is the same difference between talent and genius that there is between a stone mason and a sculptor

If the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish - if a little more enlightened, religion would perish.

Every library is an arsenal.

I would rather live with the woman I love in a world full of trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men.

Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy a coffin.

With soap, baptism is a good thing.

In the search for truth - that everything in nature seems to hide - man needs the assistance of all his faculties. All the senses should be awake.

He who dishonors himself [by lying about his opinions] for the sake of being honored by others will find that two mistakes have been made - one by himself, and the other, by the people.

Even in the business of corporations honesty is the best policy, and the companies that have acted in accordance with the highest standard, other things being equal, have reaped the richest harvest.

Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words.

He loves his country best who strives to make it best.

What has religion to do with facts? Nothing.

If I owe Smith ten dollars and God forgives me, that doesn't pay Smith.

We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death.

Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.

Nothing could be more dangerous to the existence of this Republic than to introduce religion into politics

If the money is raised by taxation, then the burden will fall where it ought to fall, . . . and the rich and stingy will no longer be able to evade the duties of citizenship and of humanity.

Our hope of immortality does not come from any religions, but nearly all religions come from that hope.

The falling leaf that tells of autumn's death is, in a subtler sense, a prophecy of spring.

I am not so much for the freedom of religion as I am for the religion of freedom.

Reason is the light, the sun of the brain. It is the compass of the mind, the ever-constant Northern Star, the mountain peak that lifts itself above all clouds.

Prayer is of no avail. The lightning falls on the just and the unjust in accordance with natural laws.

To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy.

Do right, not to deny yourself but because you love yourself and because you love others.

I would rather be a beggar and spend my money like a king, than be a king and spend money like a beggar.

Nothing could be more idiotic and absurd than the doctrine of the trinity.

Let every man teach his son, teach his daughter, that labor is honorable.