Robert G. Ingersoll quotes - page 2

The present is the necessary product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future. (Robert G. Ingersoll)
The rights of all are equal: justice, poised and balanced in eternal calm, will shake from the golden scales in which are weighed the acts of men, the very dust of prejudice and caste: No race, no color, no previous condition, can change the rights of men. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers; it is the only prayer that deserves an answer, - good, honest, noble work. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his companions, during all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey. View quote
Robert G. 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. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men are not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are superior who have the best heart - the best brain. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
Any church that imprisons a man because he has used an argument against its creed, will simply convince the world that it cannot answer the argument. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
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. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
Every cradle asks us, "Whence?" and every coffin, "Whither?" The poor barbarian, weeping above his dead, can answer these questions as intelligently as the robed priest of the most authentic creed. View quote
Robert G. 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 G. Ingersoll)
I belong to the Great Church which holds the world within its starlit aisles; that claims the great and good of every race and clime; that finds with joy the grain of gold in every creed, and floods with light and love the germs of good in every soul. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
Give any orthodox church the power, and to-day they would punish heresy with whip, and chain, and fire. As long as a church deems a certain belief essential to salvation, just so long it will kill and burn if it has the power. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
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. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
Let us put theology out of religion. Theology has always sent the worst to heaven, the best to hell. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
The time to be happy is now, and the place to be happy is here. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows. (Robert G. Ingersoll)
Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
The inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of the gentleman who reads it. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
The Emperor Constantine, who lifted Christianity into power, murdered his wife Fausta, and his eldest son Crispus, the same year that he convened the Council of Nice to decide whether Jesus Christ was a man or the Son of God. The council decided that Christ was consubstantial with the father. This was in the year 325. We are thus indebted to a wife-murderer for settling the vexed question of the divinity of the Savior. View quote
Robert G. 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. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll