Robert G. Ingersoll: Trending quotes (page 18)

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“Whoever increases the sum of human joy, is a worshiper. He who adds to the sum of human misery, is a blasphemer.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

Joy

“It is incredible that only idiots are absolutely sure of salvation. It is incredible that the more brain you have the less your chance is. There can be no danger in honest thought, and if the world ever advances beyond what it is to-day, it must be led by men who express their real opinions.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

The Great Infidels (1881)

Men , World , Chance

“The more false we destroy the more room there will be for the true.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

"Orthodoxy" (1884). The Complete Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (1902) Vol. 2. p. 343

Falseness

“The God of Hell should be held in loathing, contempt and scorn. A God who threatens eternal pain should be hated, not loved — cursed, not worshiped. A heaven presided over by such a God must be below the lowest hell. I want no part in any heaven in which the saved, the ransomed and redeemed will drown with shouts of joy the cries and sobs of hell — in which happiness will forget misery, where the tears of the lost only increase laughter and double bliss.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

The Great Infidels (1881)

Love , God , Pain , Hate

“Orthodox religion is a kind of boa-constrictor; anything it can not dodge it will swallow.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

"The Brooklyn Divines." Brooklyn Union (Brooklyn, NY), 1883.

Religion

“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; without that, we are poor, miserable serfs and slaves.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

World , Question , Painting

“The church has had the field for eighteen hundred years. For most of this time it has held the sword and purse of the world. For many centuries it controlled colleges and universities and schools. It had within its gift wealth and honor. It held the keys, so far as this world is concerned, of heaven and hell—that is to say, of prosperity and misfortune. It pursued its enemies even to the grave. It reddened the scaffold with the best blood, and kept the sword of persecution wet for many centuries. Thousands and thousands have died in its dungeons. Millions of reputations have been blasted by its slanders. It has made millions of widows and orphans, and it has not only ruled this world, but it has pretended to hold the keys of eternity, and under this pretence (sic) it has sentenced countless millions to eternal flames.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

A Christmas Sermon (1890)

World , School , Hell , Universe

“After all, sympathy is genius. A man who really sympathizes with another understands him. A man who sympathizes with a religion, instantly sees the good that is in it, and the man who sympathizes with the right, sees the evil that a creed contains.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

Religion , Understanding , Evil

“What has been called Christianity has been a disturber of the public peace in all countries and at all times. Nothing has so alienated nations, nothing has so destroyed the natural justice of mankind, as what has been known as religion. The idea that all men must worship the same God, believe the same dogmas, has for thousands of years plucked with bloody hands the flower of pity from the human heart.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)

Men , God , Peace , Religion

“Another good remedy for wife-beating is the abolition of the Catholic Church.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Interview with the Chicago Times, Feb. 14, 1881.

“According to the Bible, the apostles were ordered to go into all the world and preach the gospel—yet not one of them, nor one of their converts at any time, nor one of the vicars of God, for fifteen hundred years afterward, knew of the existence of the Western Hemisphere.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Rome, or Reason? A Reply to Cardinal Manning. Part I. The North American Review (1888)

God , World , Time

“Is there beyond the silent night
An endless day?
Is death a door that leads to light?
We cannot say.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

"The Devil" (1899) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38804/38804-h/38804-h.htm Section IX, "Conclusion: Declaration of the Free" Compare: "the door of Darkness", The Rubaiyat, stanza 64.

Death , Light , Night

“By making a statute and by defining blasphemy, the church sought to prevent discussion -- sought to prevent argument -- sought to prevent a man giving his honest opinion. Certainly a tenet, a dogma, a doctrine, is safe when hedged about by a statute that prevents your speaking against it. In the silence of slavery it exists. It lives because lips are locked. It lives because men are slaves.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

Men , Silence

“There may have been sometime in the history of the world a worse religion than Old School Presbyterianism, but if there ever was, from cannibalism to civilization, I have never heard of it.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

My Reviewers Reviewed (lecture from June 27, 1877, San Francisco, CA)

World , School , Religion , History

“There is no more perfect picture on the earth, or within the imagination of man, than a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms a child, the fruit of love.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

Love , Imagination , Perfection , Happiness

“Christianity is this: A belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures, the atonement, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, an eternal reward for the believers in Christ, and eternal punishment for the rest of us. Now, take from Christianity its miracles, its absurdities of the atonement and fall of man and the inspiration of the Scriptures, and I have no objection to it as I understand it. I believe, in the main, in the Christianity which I suppose Christ taught, that is, in kindness, gentleness, forgiveness. I do not believe in loving enemies; I have pretty hard work to love my friends.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

"The Brooklyn Divines." Brooklyn Union (Brooklyn, NY), 1883.

Love , Life , Death , Forgiveness

“For hundreds of years the Bible was the standard, and whenever anything was asserted in any science contrary to-the Bible, the church immediately denounced the scientist. I admit the standard has been changed, and ministers are very busy, not trying to show that science does not agree with the Bible, but that the Bible agrees with science.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

A Christmas Sermon (1890)

Business , Science , Change

“The heretics have not thought and suffered and died in vain. Every heretic has been, and is, a ray of light.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Heretics and Heresies (1874)

Light , Suffering

“The clergy have always had great faith in famine, in affliction, in pestilence. They know that a man is a thousand times more apt to thank God for a crust or a crumb than for a banquet.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

"The Brooklyn Divines." Brooklyn Union (Brooklyn, NY), 1883.

God , Faith , Affliction , Time