Robert Green Ingersoll famous quotes

Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Religion #Atheism #Reform

No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Work #Men #Sense Of Humor

If God created the universe, there was a time when he commenced to create. Back of that commencement there must have been an eternity. In that eternity what was this God doing? He certainly did not think. There was nothing to think about. He did not remember. Nothing had ever happened. What did he do? Can you imagine anything more absurd than an infinite intelligence in infinite nothing wasting an eternity?
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Thinking #Remember #Infinite

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Inspirational #Positive #Sports

Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Inspirational #Happiness #Depression

Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Respect #Giving #Feminist

The careful reader of the New Testament will find three Christs described: - One who wished to preserve Judaism - one who wished to reform it, and one who built a system of his own
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Reading #Reform #Three

There will never be a generation of great men until there has been a generation of free women - of free mothers.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Mother #Men #Liberty

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.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Faith #Moon #Religion

The priests of one religion never credit the miracles of another religion. Is this because priests instinctively know priests?
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Miracle #Religion #Credit

Infidels in all ages have battled for the rights of man, and have at all times been the fearless advocates of liberty and justice.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Men #Rights #Justice

Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Inspirational #Hope #Nature

What light is to the eyes - what air is to the lungs - what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Love #Motivational #Stars

I am a believer in liberty . That is my religion to give to every other human being every right that I claim for myself, and I grant to every other human being, not the right because it is his right but instead of granting I declare that it is his right, to attack every doctrine that I maintain, to answer every argument that I may urge in other words, he must have absolute freedom of speech.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Giving #Freedom Of Speech #Liberty

The intellectual advancement of man depends on how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Men #Religion #Intellectual

Do you not know that every religion in the world has declared every other religion a fraud? Yes, we all know it. That is the time all religions tell the truth - each of the other.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Religion #Atheism #World

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

#Kings #Hypocrite #Hypocrisy

Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Ignorance #Miracle #Religion

The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Wisdom #Freedom #Men

Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Inspirational #Motivational #Happiness

It is told that the great Angelo, in decorating a church, painted some angels wearing sandals. A cardinal looking at the picture said to the artist: Whoever saw angels with sandals? Angelo answered with another question: Whoever saw an angel barefooted?
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Angel #Artist #Atheism

I believe in the religion of reason -- the gospel of this world; in the development of the mind, in the accumulation of intellectual wealth, to the end that man may free himself from superstitious fear, to the end that he may take advantage of the forces of nature to feed and clothe the world.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Believe #Men #Mind

The man who invented the telescope found out more about heaven than the closed eyes of prayer ever discovered.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Prayer #Eye #Men

It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Old Habits #Bones #Beats

There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Freedom #Men #Tyrants

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

#God #Forgive Me #Forgiving

The Church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Humorous #Heaven #Religion

Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Science #Experience #Evolution

If the Bible and my brain are both the work of the same infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and my brain do not agree?
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Book #Brain #Faults

Religion has not civilized man, man has civilized religion.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Men #Religion #Civilized

When I became convinced that the universe is natural, that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell. The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Atheist #Wall #Dust

Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers: It is the only prayer that deserves an answer—good, honest, noble work.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Prayer #Noble #Answers

It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Education #Wisdom #School

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

#Long #Atheism #Inquiry

Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Believe #Intelligent #Men

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

#Death #Fate #Honor

I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Men #Doubt #Mind

Either god should have written a book to fit my brain, or he should have made my brain to fit his book.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Book #Brain #Atheism

Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Men #Economic Inequality #Political

The more false we destroy, the more room there will be for the true.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Rooms

A mortgage casts a shadow on the sunniest field.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Shadow #Debt #Fields

The more liberty you give away the more you will have.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Giving #Liberty

A mule has neither pride of ancestry nor hope of posterity.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Pride #Mules #Ancestry

There is the same difference between talent and genius that there is between a stone mason and a sculptor
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Differences #Stones #Genius

Christianity has such a contemptible opinion of human nature that it does not believe a man can tell the truth unless frightened by a belief in god. No lower opinion of the human race has ever been expressed.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Believe #Men #Race

Love is natural. Back of allceremony burns and will forever burn the sacred flame. There has been no time in the world's history when that torch was extinguished. In all ages, in all climes, among all people, there has been true, pure, and unselfish love.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Life #Love Is #Flames

It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions, -- some one who had the grandeur to say his say. I believe it was Magellan who said, The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church. On the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Faith #Blessed #Believe

The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Hate #Religion #Church

A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Atheist #Eagles #Wings

We rise by lifting others.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Helping Others #Helping #Lifting Others

Love is the only bow of life's dark cloud. It is the Morning and Evening Star. It shines upon the cradle of the babe, and sheds its radiance upon the quiet tomb. It is the Mother of Art, inspirer of poet, patriot, and philosopher. It is the air and light of every heart, builder of every home, kinder of every fire on every hearth, it was the first dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody. Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings of common clay....
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Mother #Dream #Art

Few rich men own their property; their property owns them.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Men #Vaccines #Rich

Secularism is a religion, a religion that is understood. It has no mysteries, no mumblings, no priests, no ceremonies, no falsehoods, no miracles, and no persecutions.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Miracle #Mystery #Priests

Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and depth; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Wall #Knowing #Depth

Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Common Sense #Superstitions #Epithet

Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Education #College #Pebbles

Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Progress #World #Superstitions

I would rather live and love where death is king than have eternal life where love is not.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Love #Kings #Eternal Life

To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum of all the creeds.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Hate #Men #Worship

Justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Eye #Long #Justice

Man must learn to rely upon himself. Reading bibles will not protect him from the blasts of winter, but houses, fires. and clothing will. To prevent famine, one plow is worth a million sermons, and even patent medicines will cure more diseases than all the prayers uttered since the beginning of the world.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Prayer #Reading #Winter

The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Honesty #Integrity #Character

If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Ambition #Ignorance #Civilization

An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Thinking #Law #Able

Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Kindness #Sunshine #Virtue

If nobody has too much, everybody will have enough.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Too Much #Enough

Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Hope #Liars #Lying

While I am opposed to all orthodox creeds, I have a creed myself; and my creed is this. Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so. This creed is somewhat short, but it is long enough for this life, strong enough for this world. If there is another world, when we get there we can make another creed.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Strong #Long #World

If there is one subject in this world worthy of being discussed, worthy of being understood, it is the question of intellectual liberty. Without that, we are simply painted clay.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Intellectual #Liberty #World

The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Atheist #Clergy

No one infers a god from the simple, from the known, from what is understood, but from the complex, from the unknown, and incomprehensible. Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Ignorance #Simple #Understood

A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Lying #Miracle #Facts

The glory of science is, that it is freeing the soul, breaking the mental manacles, getting the brain out of bondage, giving courage to thought, filling the world with mercy, justice, and joy.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Science #Engineering #Justice

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Inspiring #Wisdom #Nature

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

#Courage #Real #Writing

In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Work #India #Genius

The hands that help are better far than lips that pray.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Atheist #Hands #Religion

The inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of the gentleman who reads it.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Bible #Inspiration #Ignorance

The Catholics have a Pope. Protestants laugh at them, and yet the Pope is capable of intellectual advancement. In addition to this, the Pope is mortal, and the church cannot be afflicted with the same idiot forever. The Protestants have a book for their Pope. The book cannot advance. Year after year, and century after century, the book remains as ignorant as ever.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Book #Biblical #Years

If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Bible #Atheist #Teaching

Arguments cannot be answered with insults. . . . Kindness is strength. . . . Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, every one should be serene, slow-pulsed, and calm.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Kindness #Blow #Mind

The triumph of justice is the only peace.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Justice #Triumph

This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Atheist #Intelligence #Religion

Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God. While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Lying #Hate #Blood

Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Prayer #Answers #Labor

Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Inspirational #Revenge #Anger

The agnostic does not simply say, "l do not know." He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. He insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others, and on the fear of others. He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know, -- he demonstrates that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact -- he drives you from the realm of reason -- he drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture -- into the world of dreams and shadows, and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Dream #Ignorance #Light

As more people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Death #Teacher #Atheist

All the martyrs in the history of the world are not sufficient to establish the correctness of an opinion. Martyrdom, as a rule, establishes the sincerity of the martyr, - never the correctness of his thought. Things are true or false in themselves. Truth cannot be affected by opinions; it cannot be changed, established, or affected by martyrdom. An error cannot be believed sincerely enough to make it a truth.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Truth #Errors #Religion

It is contended by many that ours is a Christian government, founded upon the Bible, and that all who look upon the book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Christian #Country #Book

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

#Astrology #People #Ignorant

A man is not moral because he is obedient through fear or ignorance. Morality lives in the realm of perceived obligation...
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Ignorance #Men #Moral

It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Birthday #Courage #Blessed

So, ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Giving #Charity #Natural

In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

#Death #Acceptance #Clouds