Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes
In the presence of death I affirm and reaffirm the truth of all that I have said against the superstitions of the world. I would say that much on the subject with my last breath.
the inventor of the plow did more good than the maker of the first rosary - because, say what you will, plowing is better than praying.
Twenty years after the death of Luther there were more Catholics than when he was born. And twenty years after the death of Voltaire there were millions less than when he was born.
I read the other day an account of a meeting between John Knox and John Calvin. Imagine a dialogue between a pestilence and a famine!
The only evidence, so far as I know, about another life is, first, that we have no evidence; and secondly, that we are rather sorry that we have not, and wish we had.
If there be gods we cannot help them, but we can assist our fellow men. We cannot love the inconceivable, but we can love wife and child and friend.
The hands that help are better far / Than lips that pray. / Love is the ever gleaming star / That leads the way, / That shines, not on vague worlds of bliss, / But on a paradise in this.
For thousands of years people have been trying to force other people to think their way. Did they succeed? No. Will they succeed? No. Why? Because brute force is not an argument.
The hope of science is the perfection of the human race. The hope of theology is the salvation of a few, and the damnation of almost everybody.
Liberty is the condition of progress. Without Liberty, there remains only barbarism. Without Liberty, there can be no civilization.
When a fact can be demonstrated, force is unnecessary; when it cannot be demonstrated, force is infamous.
There is something tenderly appropriate in the serene death of the old. Nothing is more touching than the death of the young, the strong.
I admit that books were voted in and out, and that the Bible was finally formed in accordance with a vote.
The emblem of equal rights. It means free hands, free lips, self- government, and the sovereignty of the individual.
At thirty most men have prejudices rather than opinions-that is to say, rather than judgments-and few men have lived to be sixty without materially modifying the opinions they held at thirty.
By physical liberty I mean the right to do anything which does not interfere with the happiness of another. By intellectual liberty I mean the right to think and the right to think wrong.
Intellect, without heart, is infinitely cruel. . . . So that, after all, the real aristocracy must be that of goodness where the intellect is directed by the heart.
Nothing is greater than to break the chains from the bodies of men, nothing nobler than to destroy the phantom of the soul.
Logic is not satisfied with assertion. It cares nothing for the opinions of the great; nothing for the prejudices of the many, and least of all for the superstitions of the dead.
The greatest superstition now entertained by public men is that hypocrisy is the royal road to success.
We must remember that we have to make judges out of men, and that by being made judges their prejudices are not diminished and their intelligence is not increased.
If we have the right to use our reason, we certainly have the right to act in accordance with it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such action
Great virtues may draw attention from defects, they cannot sanctify them. A pebble surrounded by diamonds remains a common stone, and a diamond surrounded by pebbles is still a gem.
Wait until the world is free before you write a creed. In this creed there will be but one word -- Liberty.
All religions are inconsistent with mental freedom. Shakespeare is my bible, Burns my hymn-book.
It is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the Hebrew god.
We have at last ascertained that miracles can be perfectly understood; that there is nothing mysterious about them; that they are simply transparent falsehoods.
Music was born of love. Had there never been any human affection, there never could have been uttered a strain of music.
Take the word Liberty from human speech and all the other words become poor, withered, meaningless sounds - but with that word realized - with that word understood, the world becomes a paradise.
Civilization has gotten further and further from the so-called 'natural' man, who uses all his faculties: perception, invention, improvisation.
Jehovah was not a moral god. He had all the vices and he lacked all the virtues. He generally carried out all his threats, but he never faithfully kept a promise.
The ideas of right and wrong change with the experience of the race, and this change is wrought by the gradual ascertaining of consequences - of results.
