Robert Ingersoll Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

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. — Robert Green Ingersoll

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

Joy is wealth and love is the legal tender of the soul. — Robert Green Ingersoll

A good deed is the best prayer. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Millions of men give all their energies, as well as their very souls, for the acquisition of gold. And this will continue as long as society is ignorant enough and hypocritical enough to hold in high esteem the man of wealth without the slightest regard to the character of the man ... In judging of the rich, two things should be considered: How did they get it, and what are they doing with it? Was it honestly acquired? Is it being used for the benefit of mankind? — Robert Green Ingersoll

There can be goodness without much intelligence - but it seems to me that perfect intelligence and perfect goodness must go together. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Compare King William with the philosopher Haeckel. The king is one of the anointed by the most high, as they claim - one upon whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority. Compare this king with Haeckel, who towers an intellectual colossus above the crowned mediocrity. Compare George Eliot with Queen Victoria. The Queen is clothed in garments given her by blind fortune and unreasoning chance, while George Eliot wears robes of glory woven in the loom of her own genius.
The world is beginning to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart.
We have advanced. We have reaped the benefit of every sublime and heroic self-sacrifice, of every divine and brave act; and we should endeavor to hand the torch to the next generation, having added a little to the intensity and glory of the flame. — Robert G. Ingersoll

As long as the people persist in voting for or against men on account of their religious views, just so long will hypocrisy hold place and power. — Robert Green Ingersoll

A crime against god is a demonstrated impossibility. — Robert Green Ingersoll

As long as woman regards the Bible as the charter of her rights, she will be the slave of man. The bible was not written by a woman. Within its leaves there is nothing but humiliation and shame for her. — Robert Green Ingersoll

The man who accepts opinions because they have been entertained by distinguished people, is a mental snob. — Robert Green Ingersoll

I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the star-less night,
blown and flared by passion's storm,
and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains. — Robert G. Ingersoll

Whether there is another life or not, if there is any being who gave me this, I shall thank him from the bottom of my heart, because, upon the whole, my life has been a joy. — Robert Green Ingersoll

I believe that labor is a blessing. It never was and never will be a curse. It is a blessed thing to labor for ... the ones you love. It is a blessed thing to have an object in life - something to do - something to call into play your best thoughts, to develop your faculties and to make you a man. — Robert Green Ingersoll

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

I do not see how it is possible for a man to die worth fifty million of dollars, or ten million of dollars, in a city full of want, when he meets almost every day the withered hand of beggary and the white lips of famine. How a man can withstand all that, and hold in the clutch of his greed twenty or thirty million of dollars, is past my comprehension. I do not see how he can do it. I should not think he could do it any more than he could keep a pile of lumber on the beach, where hundreds and thousands of men were drowning in the sea. — Robert G. Ingersoll

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

They who gain applause and power by pandering to the mistakes, the prejudices and passions of the multitude are the enemies of liberty. — Robert Green Ingersoll

There are some truths, however, that we should never forget: Superstition has always been the relentless enemy of science; faith has been a hater of demonstration; hypocrisy has been sincere only in its dread of truth, and all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Everyone should be taught the nobility of labor, the heroism and splendor of honest effort. As long as it is considered disgraceful to labor, or aristocratic not to labor, the world will be filled with idleness and crime, and with every possible moral deformity. — Robert Green Ingersoll

I want to see a good miracle. I want to see a man with one
leg, and then I want to see the other leg grow out. — Robert G. Ingersoll

The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. It is the infamy of infamies. 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 relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called 'faith. — Robert G. Ingersoll

Man never had an idea - man will never have an idea, except those supplied to him by his surroundings. Every idea in the world that man has came to him by nature. — Robert Green Ingersoll

If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce. — 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

If there be an infinite Being, he does not need our help - we need not waste our energies in his defense. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Included among the ecclesiastical works on his bedroom shelves were the writings of "The Great Agnostic," Robert Ingersoll, whom the brothers and Katharine were encouraged to read. "Every mind should be true to itself - should think, investigate and conclude for itself," wrote Ingersoll. It was the influence of Ingersoll apparently that led the brothers to give up regular attendance at church, a change the Bishop seems to have accepted without protest. — David McCullough

It is labor that has made the world a fit habitation for the human race. — Robert Green Ingersoll

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

Custom is a prison, locked and barred by those who long ago were dust, the keys of which are in the keeping of the dead. — 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

The place does not make the man, nor the sceptre the king. Greatness is from within. — Robert Green Ingersoll

In the country you preserve your identity -- your personality. There you are an aggregation of atoms, but in the city you are only an atom of an aggregation. — Robert G. Ingersoll

The great man who gives a true transcript of his mind fascinates and instructs. Most writers suppress individuality. They wish to please the public. — Robert Green Ingersoll

The hands that help are better far than lips that pray. — Robert G. 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

Meekness is the mask of malice. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Nothing discloses character like the use of power. — Robert Green Ingersoll

He [Alexander von Humboldt] was to science what Shakespeare was to the drama. — Robert G. Ingersoll

I have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead: cheers for the
living; tears for the dead. — 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

Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book and creed and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free. — 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

In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous. — Robert G. Ingersoll

Liberty sustains the same relation to mind that space does to matter. — Robert G. Ingersoll

Intelligence is the only moral guide. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Tell me there is a God in the serene heavens that will damn his children for the expression of an honest belief! More men have died in their sins, judged by your orthodox creeds, than there are leaves in all the forests in the wide world ten thousand times over. Tell me these men are in Hell; that these men are in torment; that these children are in eternal pain, and that they are to be punished forever and forever! I denounce this doctrine as the most infamous of lies. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Roscoe Conkling was a man of superb courage. He not only acted without fear, but he had that fortitude of soul which bears the consequences of the course pursued without complaint. — Robert Green Ingersoll

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

I will follow my logic, no matter where it goes, after it has consulted with my heart. If you ever come to a conclusion without calling the heart in, you will come to a bad conclusion. — Robert Green Ingersoll

When your little child tells a lie, do not rush at him as though the world were about to go into bankruptcy. Be honest with him. A tyrant father will have liars for his children; do you know that? A lie is born of tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon the other, and when you rush at a poor little boy with a club in your hand, of course he lies. — Robert Green Ingersoll

I know not what discoveries, what inventions, what thoughts may leap from the brain of the world. I know not what garments of glory may be woven by the years to come. I cannot dream of the victories to be won upon the fields of thought; but I do know, that coming from the infinite sea of the future, there will never touch this 'bank and shoal of time' a richer gift, a rarer blessing than liberty for man, for woman, and for child. — Robert G. 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

There may or may not be a Supreme Ruler of the universe-but we are certain that man exists, and we believe that freedom is the condition of progress; that it is the sunshine of the mental and moral world, and that without it man will go back to the den of savagery, and wll become the fit associate of wild and ferocious beasts. — Robert Green Ingersoll

To the wise man, to the wise nation, the mistakes of the past are the torches of the present. — Robert Green Ingersoll

It is hard to overstate the debt that we owe to men and women of genius. — Robert Green Ingersoll

There may be another life, and if there is, the best way to prepare for it is by making somebody happy in this. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Walt Whitman defended the sacredness of love, the purity of passion - the passion that builds every home and fills the world with art and song. — Robert Green Ingersoll

At the bottom of religious persecution is the doctrine of self-defence; that is to say, the defence of the soul. If the founder of Christianity had plainly said: 'It is not necessary to believe in order to be saved; it is only necessary to do, and he who really loves his fellow-men, who is kind, honest, just and charitable, is to be forever blest' - if he had only said that, there would probably have been but little persecution. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Many Americans do not understand that the officers of the government are simply the servants of the people. — Robert Green Ingersoll

But those who are incapable of
pitying animals are, as a matter of fact, incapable of pitying men.
A physician who would cut a living rabbit in pieces
laying bare
the nerves, denuding them with knives, pulling them out with
forceps
would not hesitate to try experiments with men and women
for the gratification of his curiosity. — Robert G. 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

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

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! — Robert Green Ingersoll

It has always seemed to me that a being coming from another world, with a message of infinite importance to mankind, should at least have verified that message by his own signature. Is it not wonderful that not one word was written by Christ? — Robert Green Ingersoll

All laws for the purpose of making man worship God, are born of the same spirit that kindled the fires of the auto da fe, and lovingly built the dungeons of the Inquisition. All laws defining and punishing blasphemy - making it a crime to give your honest ideas about the Bible, or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient Jews, or to enjoy yourself on the Sabbath, or to give your opinion of Jehovah, were passed by impudent bigots, and should be at once repealed by honest men. An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. — Robert Green Ingersoll

They knew no better, but I do not propose to follow the example of a barbarian because he was honestly a barbarian. — Robert Green Ingersoll

It has been said that a man of genius should select his ancestors with great care - and yet there does not seem to be as much in heredity as most people think. The children of the great are often small. — Robert Green Ingersoll

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 G. Ingersoll

Not one of the orthodox ministers dare preach what he thinks if he knows a majority of his congregation think otherwise. He knows that every member of his church stands guard over his brain with a creed, like a club, in his hand. He knows that he is not expected to search after the truth, but that he is employed to defend the creed. Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment. — Robert G. Ingersoll

I believe in the fireside. I believe in the democracy of home. I believe in the republicanism of the family. I believe in liberty, equality and love. — Robert G. Ingersoll

Crimes were committed to punish crimes, and crimes were committed to prevent crimes. The world has been filled with prisons and dungeons, with chains and whips, with crosses and gibbets, with thumbscrews and racks, with hangmen and heads-men - and yet these frightful means and instrumentalities have committed far more crimes than they have prevented ... Ignorance, filth, and poverty are the missionaries of crime. As long as dishonorable success outranks honest effort - as long as society bows and cringes before the great thieves, there will be little ones enough to fill the jails. — Robert Green Ingersoll

If the property belongs to God he is able to pay the tax. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world, and love is the only thing that will pay ten percent, to borrower and lender both. — Robert Green Ingersoll

I do not think there is a person in this world who has been a more ardent admirer of him than I have been. His life and work have been an inspiration to the whole earth, shedding light in the dark places which so sadly needed light. His memory calls forth my most sincere homage, love, and esteem.

{Burbank on the great Robert Ingersoll, whom he admired so much that he requested Ingersoll's eulogy for his brother, Ebon Ingersoll, to be read at his own funeral} — Luther Burbank

Kings had their clowns, the people their actors and musicians. Shakespeare was scheduled as a servant. It is thus that successful stupidity has always treated genius. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Voltaire, as full of life as summer is full of blossoms, giving his ideas upon all subjects at the expense of prince and king, was exiled to England. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Our government should be entirely and purely secular. The religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely out of sight. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Robert Ingersoll came to [a small Midwest town] to speak ... , and after he had gone the question of the divinity of Christ for months occupied the minds of the citizens. — Sherwood Anderson

I would not for my life destroy one star of human hope, but I want it so that when a poor woman rocks the cradle and sings a lullaby to the dimpled darling, she will not be compelled to believe that ninety-nine chances in a hundred she is raising kindling wood for hell. — Robert Green Ingersoll

By nature all people are alike, but by education become different — Robert Green Ingersoll

No man should kill himself as long as he can be of the least use to anybody, and if you cannot find some person that you are willing to do something for, find a good dog and take care of him. You have no idea how much better you will feel. — Robert Green Ingersoll

The only thing that makes life endurable in this world is human love, and yet, according to Christianity, that is the very thing that we are not to have in the other world. We are to be so taken up with Jesus and angels, that we shall care nothing about our brothers and sisters that have been damned. We shall be so carried away with the music of the harp that we shall not even hear the wail of father and mother. Such a religion is a disgrace to human nature. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Laughing has always been considered by theologians as a crime. — Robert Green Ingersoll

I find that in this day and generation, the meanest men have the lowest estimate of woman; that the greater the man is, the grander he is, the more he thinks of mother, wife and daughter. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Ingersoll could not understand the mind of those who, once having been told the truth, preferred to remain under the spell of superstition and in ignorance. He could not understand why people would not accept 'new truths with gladness.'
He also knew, however, that once a person's mind had been poisoned with religious superstition, it was almost impossible to free it from the paralyzing fear which destroyed its ability to think. — Joseph Lewis

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

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

In every age in which books have been produced, the governing class, the respectable, have been opposed to the works of real genius. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Who can estimate the misery that has been caused by this infamous doctrine of eternal punishment? Think of the lives it has blighted-of the tears it has caused-of the agony it has produced. Think of the millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of dogmas. This doctrine renters God the basest and most cruel being in the universe ... There is nothing more degrading than to worship such a god. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Above all things, one should maintain his self-respect, and there is but one way to do that, and that is to live in accordance with your highest ideal. — Robert Green Ingersoll

If I had my way, I'd make health catching instead of disease. — Robert G. Ingersoll

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

Honest investigation is utterly impossible within the pale of any church, for the reason, that if you think the church is right you will not investigate, and if you think it wrong, the church will investigate you. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Brain without heart is far more dangerous than heart without
brain. — Robert G. Ingersoll

I honestly believe that the doctrine of hell was born in the glittering eyes
of snakes that run in frightful coils watching for their prey. I believe
it was born with the yelping, howling, growling and snarling of wild beasts ...
I despise it, I defy it, and I hate it. — Robert Green Ingersoll

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. — Robert Green Ingersoll