Robert Green Ingersoll was an American lawyer and political leader during the late 19th century. He was a powerful advocate of agnosticism, free thought, and civil rights. He was a prominent figure in the Golden Age of Free Thought and is often referred to as "The Great Agnostic". Following is our collection on famous quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll on love, life, education.
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.
Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.
Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.
The myth of hell represents all the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable.
Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself.
This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves.
A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing.
The hands that help are better far than lips that pray.
In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds.
Robert Green Ingersoll inspirational quote
Robert Green Ingersoll Image Quotes
Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself. — Robert Green Ingersoll
The hands that help are better far than lips that pray. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Robert Green Ingersoll Short Quotes
We rise by lifting others.
Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.
Blasphemy is what an old dogma screams at a new truth.
A mule has neither pride of ancestry nor hope of posterity.
TO PLOW IS TO PRAY; TO PLANT IS TO PROPHESY,
AND THE HARVEST ANSWERS AND FULFILLS.
You cannot be so poor that you cannot help somebody.
If I had my way I'd make health catching instead of disease.
Science built the Academy, superstition the Inquisition.
It is better to deserve without receiving than to receive without deserving
Cruelty hardens and degrades, kindness reforms and ennobles.
Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes About Love
All I have to say is, Love one another - that is the height of all philosophy. It is beyond all religions. It is the secret of joy - the fountain of Perpetual Youth - the only rainbow on life's dark cloud. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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
In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Every flower about a house certifies to the refinement of somebody. Every vine climbing and blossoming tells of love and joy — Robert Green Ingersoll
God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race. — Robert Green Ingersoll
There is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, east a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets. — Robert Green Ingersoll
He loves his country best who strives to make it best. — Robert Green Ingersoll
It seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love or worship, or respect the God of the Old Testament. A really civilized man, a really civilized woman, must hold such a God in abhorrence and contempt. — Robert Green Ingersoll
This is my creed: Happiness is the only good; reason the only torch; justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world, and love is the only thing that will pay ten percent to both borrower and lender. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes About Life
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. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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
Why should we postpone our joy to another world? Let us get all we can of the good between the cradle and the grave, all that we can of the truly dramatic. If, when death comes, that is the end, we have at least made the best of this life. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Memory is the miser of the mind; forgetfulness the spendthrift. — Robert Green Ingersoll
I hate above all things a cross man. What right has he to murder the sunshine of a day? What right has he to assassinate the Joy of life? When you go home, you ought to go like a ray of light-so that it will, even in the night, burst out of the doors and windows and illuminate the darkness. — Robert Green Ingersoll
If this religion is true, then there is only one Savior, only one narrow path to life. Christianity cannot live in peace with any other religion. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Liberty cannot be sacrificed for the sake of temperance, for the sake of morality, or for the sake of anything. It is of more value than everything. Yet some people would destroy the sun to prevent the growth of weeds. Liberty sustains the same relation to all the virtues that the sun does to life. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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
The good part of Christmas is not always Christian -- it is generally Pagan; that is to say, human, natural. — Robert Green Ingersoll
If, with all the time at my disposal, with all the wealth of the resources of this vast universe, to do with as I will, I could not produce a better scheme of life than now prevails, I would be ashamed of my efforts and consider my work a humiliating failure. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes About Education
It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense. — Robert Green Ingersoll
One good schoolmaster is worth a thousand priests. — Robert Green Ingersoll
The object of all education should be to increase the usefulness of man - usefulness to himself and others. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Superstition is, always has been, and forever will be, the foe of progress, the enemy of education and the assassin of freedom. — Robert Green Ingersoll
When passions and appetites are stronger than the intellect, men are savages; when the intellect governs the passions, when the passions are servants, men are civilized. The people need education - facts - philosophy. — Robert Green Ingersoll
By nature all people are alike, but by education become different — Robert Green Ingersoll
As long as a man lives he should study. Death alone has the right to dismiss the school. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes About Religion
The priests of one religion never credit the miracles of another religion. Is this because priests instinctively know priests? — Robert Green Ingersoll
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
According to the celestial multiplication table, once one is three, and three times one is one, and according to heavenly subtraction if we take two from three, three are left. The addition is equally peculiar, if we add two to one we have but one. Each one is equal to himself and the other two. — Robert Green Ingersoll
An infinite God ought to be able to protect Himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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
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. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Religion has not civilized man, man has civilized religion. — Robert Green Ingersoll
The Catholic Church is a thousand times better than your Protestant Church upon that question [of damnation]. The Catholic Church believes in purgatory - that is, a place where a fellow can get a chance to make a motion for a new trial. — Robert Green Ingersoll
If the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish - if a little more enlightened, religion would perish. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Fear paints pictures of ghosts and hangs them in the gallery of ignorance. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes About Death
Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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
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
The falling leaf that tells of autumn's death is, in a subtler sense, a prophecy of spring. — Robert Green Ingersoll
As more people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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
They who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave, need have no fear. The larger and the nobler faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest ... The dead do not suffer. — Robert Green Ingersoll
For myself, I have but little confidence in any business, or enterprise, or investment, that promises dividends only after the death of the stockholders. — Robert Green Ingersoll
There is something tenderly appropriate in the serene death of the old. Nothing is more touching than the death of the young, the strong. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Upon the great questions of origin, of destiny, of immortality, of . . . other worlds, every honest man must say, 'I do not know.' Upon these questions, this is the creed of intelligence. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes About Liberty
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
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
Liberty cannot be sacrificed for the sake of anything. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Intellectual liberty [is] the right to think right and the right to think wrong. Thought is the means by which we endeavor to arrive at truth. — Robert Green Ingersoll
The combined wisdom and genius of all mankind cannot possibly conceive of an argument against liberty of thought. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Wait until the world is free before you write a creed. In this creed there will be but one word -- Liberty. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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
The more liberty you give away the more you will have. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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. — Robert Green Ingersoll
I want no heaven for which I must give my reason; no happiness in exchange for my liberty, and no immortality that demands the surrender of my individuality. Better rot in the windowless tomb, to which there is no door but the red mouth of the pallid worm, than to wear the jeweled collar of a god. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes About Happiness
If you have ever clothed another with woe, as with a garment of pain, you will never be quite as happy as though you had not done that thing. — Robert Green Ingersoll
My creed is that: Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result. — Robert Green Ingersoll
There is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so, and you cannot be happy by going cross lots; you have got to go the regular turnpike road. — Robert Green Ingersoll
The idea that there is a God who rewards and punishes, and who can reward, if he so wishes, the meanest and vilest of the human race, so that he will be eternally happy, and can punish the best of the human race, so that he will be eternally miserable, is subversive of all morality. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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. — Robert Green Ingersoll
The church teaches us that we can make God happy by being miserable ourselves. — Robert Green Ingersoll
The way to be happy is to make others so. — Robert Green Ingersoll
No God can put a man in hell in another world, who has made a little heaven in this. God cannot make a man miserable if that man has made somebody else happy. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Robert Green Ingersoll Famous Quotes And Sayings
Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself. — Robert Green Ingersoll
The hands that help are better far than lips that pray. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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
To destroy guide-boards that point in the wrong direction . . . to drive the fiend of fear from the mind . . . is the task of the Freethinker. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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
Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment. — Robert Green Ingersoll
This, in my judgment, is the highest philosophy: First, do not regret having lost yesterday; second, do not fear that you will lose tomorrow; third, enjoy today. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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
The few took advantage of the ignorant many. They pretended to have received messages from the Unknown. They stood between the helpless multitude and the gods. They were the carriers of flags of truce. At the court of heaven they presented the cause of man, and upon the labor of the deceived they lived. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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
The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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
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
Age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed — Robert Green Ingersoll
So, ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give. — Robert Green Ingersoll
The credulity of the church is decreasing, and the most marvelous miracles are not either 'explained,' or allowed to take refuge behind the mistakes of the translators, or hide in the drapery of allegory. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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
In a world of cruelty, sympathy is a crime, and in a world of lies, truth is blasphemy. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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
Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Insolence is not logic; epithets are the arguments of malice. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To the common man the great problems are easy. He has no trouble in accounting for the universe. He can tell you the origin and destiny of man and the why and wherefore of things. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Every library is an arsenal. — Robert Green Ingersoll
There is the same difference between talent and genius that there is between a stone mason and a sculptor — Robert Green Ingersoll
In all ages, hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves, called kings. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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. — Robert Green Ingersoll
With soap, baptism is a good thing. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy a coffin. — Robert Green Ingersoll
The destroyer of weeds, thistles, and thorns is a benefactor whether he soweth grain or not. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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. — Robert Green Ingersoll
The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be believed only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called faith. — Robert Green Ingersoll
The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Would God give a bird wings and make it a crime to fly? Would he give me brains and make it a crime to think? Any God that would damn one of his children for the expression of his honest thought wouldn't make a decent thief. When I read a book and don't believe it, I ought to say so. I will do so and take the consequences like a man. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Nothing could be more dangerous to the existence of this Republic than to introduce religion into politics — Robert Green Ingersoll
The Christians say, that among the ancient Jews, if you committed a crime you had to kill a sheep. Now they say 'charge it.' 'Put it on the slate.' The Savior will pay it. In this way, rascality is sold on credit, and the credit system in morals, as in business, breeds extravagance. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Our hope of immortality does not come from any religions, but nearly all religions come from that hope. — Robert Green Ingersoll
To avoid pain we must know the conditions of health. For the accomplishment of this end we must rely upon investigation instead of faith, upon labor in place of prayer. Most misery is produced by ignorance. Passions sow the seeds of pain. — Robert Green Ingersoll
I am not so much for the freedom of religion as I am for the religion of freedom. — Robert Green Ingersoll
To know that the Bible is the literature of a barbarous people, to know that it is uninspired, to be certain that the supernatural does not and cannot exist - all this is but the beginning of wisdom. — Robert Green Ingersoll
As far as I am concerned I wish to be out on the high seas. I wish to take my chances with wind, and wave, and star. And I had rather go down in the glory and grandeur of the storm, than rot in any orthodox harbor. — Robert Green Ingersoll
I would rather be a beggar and spend my money like a king, than be a king and spend money like a beggar. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Prayer is of no avail. The lightning falls on the just and the unjust in accordance with natural laws. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Religion is one of the phases of thought through which the world is passing. — Robert Green Ingersoll
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. — Robert Green Ingersoll
He (Thomas Paine) saw oppression on every hand; injustice everywhere; hypocrisy at the altar; venality on the bench, tyranny on the throne; and with a splendid courage he espoused the cause of the weak against the strong — Robert Green Ingersoll
On every hand there seems to be design to defeat design. If God created man - if he is the father of us all, why did he make the criminals, the insane, the deformed and idiotic? Should the mother, who clasps to her breast an idiot child, thank God? — Robert Green Ingersoll
Religion supports nobody. It has to be supported. It produces no wheat, no corn; it ploughs no land; it fells no forests. It is a perpetual mendicant. It lives on the labors of others, and then has the arrogance to pretend that it supports the giver. — Robert Green Ingersoll
If a man wishes to have God recognized in the constitution of our country, let him read the history of the Inquisition, and let him remember that hundreds of millions of men, women, and children have been sacrificed to placate the wrath, or win the approbation of this god. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains. — Robert Green Ingersoll
To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy. — Robert Green Ingersoll
The first step is for man to cease to be the slave of man. The second, is to cease to be the slave of the monsters of his own creation, the ghosts and phantoms of the air. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods. — Robert Green Ingersoll
But honest men do not pretend to know; they are candid and sincere; they love the truth; they admit their ignorance, and they say, We do not know. — Robert Green Ingersoll
The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Every human being should be taught that his first duty is to take care of himself, and that to be self-respecting he must be self-supporting. To live on the labor of others, either by force which enslaves, or by cunning which robs, or by borrowing or begging, is wholly dishonorable. Every man should be taught some useful art. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Honesty is the mother of confidence; it unites, combines and solidifies society. Dishonesty is disintegration; it destroys confidence; it brings social chaos. . . . — Robert Green Ingersoll
Any doctrine that will not bear investigation is not a fit tenant for the mind of an honest man. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Theology is not what we know about God, but what we do not know about Nature. — Robert Green Ingersoll
Life Lessons by Robert Green Ingersoll
Robert Green Ingersoll's work emphasizes the importance of equality, justice, and freedom for all people, regardless of race, gender, or religion.
He was a passionate advocate for civil rights and a leader in the movement to end slavery.
Ingersoll's work serves as a reminder that everyone should have the right to pursue their own happiness and to be treated with dignity and respect.
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