Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes

He who commends the brutalities of the past, sows the seeds of future crimes.

Creationists use facts the same way a drunk uses a lightpost: for support instead of illumination

It seems to me that if there is some infinite being who wants us to think alike he would have made us alike.

The churches have no confidence in each other. Why? Because they are acquainted with each other.

The history of the world shows that when a mean thing was done, man did it; when a good thing was done, man did it.

Darwin has done more to change human thought than all the priests who have existed.

God cannot send to eternal pain a man who has done something toward improving the condition of his fellow-man. If he can, I had rather go to hell than to heaven and keep company with such a god.

We are not accountable for the sins of "Adam".

Martyrdom, as a rule, establishes the sincerity of the martyr, never the correctness of his thought. Things are true or false in themselves.

An infinite personality is an infinite impossibility.

The rights of men and women should be equal and sacred-marriage should be a perfect partnership.

Every creed is a rock in running water: humanity sweeps by it. Every creed cries to the universe, "Halt!" A creed is the ignorant Past bulling the enlightened Present.

There is more real devotional feeling summoned from the temple of the mind by great music than by any sermon ever delivered.

If we are immortal it is a fact in nature, and we are not indebted to priests for it, nor to bibles for it, and it cannot be destroyed by unbelief.

He who treats his friends and enemies alike, has neither love nor justice.

Epithets are not arguments. Abuse does not persuade.

The more a man knows, the more willing he is to learn-the less a man knows, the more positive he is that he knows everything.

Arguments cannot be answered by personal abuse; there is no logic in slander, and falsehood, in the long run, defeats itself.

I thank thee, Mother Nature, that thou hast put ingenuity enough in the brain of a child, when attacked by a brutal parent, to throw up a little breastwork in the shape of a lie.

Intellect, without heart, is infinitely cruel. . . .

Eternal punishment must be eternal cruelty, and I do not see how any man, unless he has the brain of an idiot, or the heart of a wild beast, can believe in eternal punishment.

Spirituality for the most part is a mask worn by idleness, arrogance and greed.

When struck on one cheek to turn the other, is really joining a conspiracy to secure the triumph of brutality. To agree not to resist evil is to become an accomplice of all injustice.

Meekness is the mask of malice.

The whip degrades; a severe father teaches his children to dissemble; their love is pretense, and their obedience a species of self-defense. Fear is the father of lies.

If the property belongs to God he is able to pay the tax.

Whoever increases the sum of human joy, is a worshiper. He who adds to the sum of human misery, is a blasphemer.

Intellectual liberty is the air of the soul, the sunshine of the mind, and without it, the world is a prison, the universe is a dungeon.

I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony.

Not only are we here to protect the public from vicious criminals in the street but also to protect the public from harmful ideas.

To give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself.

The first duty of man is to support himself - to see to it that he does not become a burden. His next duty is to help others if he has a surplus, and if he really believes they deserve to be helped.

I would rather smoke one cigar than hear two sermons.

The present is the necessary product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future.

Every child should be taught that useful work is worship and that intelligent labor is the highest form of prayer.

Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God.

By nature all people are alike, but by education become different

Every sect is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed his will to man. To each reader the Bible conveys a different meaning.

Commerce makes friends, religion makes enemies; the one enriches, and the other impoverishes; the one thrives best where the truth is told, the other where falsehoods are believed.

The old lady who said there must be a devil, else how could they make pictures that looked exactly like him, reasoned like a trained theologian - like a doctor of divinity.

Orthodoxy cannot afford to put out the fires of hell.

They knew that it was necessary to believe these things and to love God. They knew that there could be no salvation except by faith, and through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.

Laughing has always been considered by theologians as a crime.

I have had some trouble in regarding evil as having been intended by infinite Goodness.

Many people think they have religion when they are troubled with dyspepsia.

All prayers die in the air which they uselessly agitate.

He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world.

Ignorance is the worst form of slavery. (Paraphrased)

If we should put god in the Constitution there would be no room left for man.

Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin; and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task.