Robert G. Ingersoll Quotes (439 quotes, page 5)

“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 G. Ingersoll

“In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: Humboldt From 'The Gods and Other Lectures'

People , Age , Sleep

“Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)
Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. V
Context: I do not rely upon superstition, but upon knowledge; not upon miracles, but upon facts; not upon the dead, but upon the living; and when we become absolutely civilized, we shall look back upon the superstitions of the world, not simply with contempt, but with pity.
Context: What is blasphemy? I will give you a definition; I will give you my thought upon this subject. What is real blasphemy?
To live on the unpaid labor of other men — that is blasphemy.
To enslave your fellow-man, to put chains upon his body — that is blasphemy.
To enslave the minds of men, to put manacles upon the brain, padlocks upon the lips — that is blasphemy.
To deny what you believe to be true, to admit to be true what you believe to be a lie — that is blasphemy.
To strike the weak and unprotected, in order that you may gain the applause of the ignorant and superstitious mob — that is blasphemy.
To persecute the intelligent few, at the command of the ignorant many — that is blasphemy.
To forge chains, to build dungeons, for your honest fellow-men — that is blasphemy.
To pollute the souls of children with the dogma of eternal pain — that is blasphemy.
To violate your conscience — that is blasphemy.
The jury that gives an unjust verdict, and the judge who pronounces an unjust sentence, are blasphemers.
The man who bows to public opinion against his better judgment and against his honest conviction, is a blasphemer.
Why should we fear our fellow-men? Why should not each human being have the right, so far as thought and its expression are concerned, of all the world? What harm can come from an honest interchange of thought?

Sense

“Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Suffering , Happiness

“Arguments cannot be answered by personal abuse; there is no logic in slander, and falsehood, in the long run, defeats itself.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: Some Mistakes of Moses

Personality

“It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Education , Sense , Time

“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 G. Ingersoll

Source: The Ghosts and Other Lectures

“This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim for yourself. Keep your mind open to the influences of nature. Receive new thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child

Nature

“With soap, baptism is a good thing.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

“To give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

“Liberty a word without which all other words are vain.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Context: It is impossible that there should be such a thing as real religion without liberty. Without liberty there can be no such thing as conscience, no such word as justice. All human actions — all good, all bad — have for a foundation the idea of human liberty, and without Liberty there can be no vice, and there can be no virtue.
Without Liberty there can be no worship, no blasphemy — no love, no hatred, no justice, no progress.
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.
Context: Liberty is the condition of progress. Without Liberty, there remains only barbarism. Without Liberty, there can be no civilization.
If another man has not the right to think, you have not even the right to think that he thinks wrong. If every man has not the right to think, the people of New Jersey had no right to make a statute, or to adopt a constitution — no jury has the right to render a verdict, and no court to pass its sentence.
In other words, without liberty of thought, no human being has the right to form a judgment. It is impossible that there should be such a thing as real religion without liberty. Without liberty there can be no such thing as conscience, no such word as justice. All human actions — all good, all bad — have for a foundation the idea of human liberty, and without Liberty there can be no vice, and there can be no virtue.
Without Liberty there can be no worship, no blasphemy — no love, no hatred, no justice, no progress.
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.

“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.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Liberty.
Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. IX

Men , Color , Heart

“In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Mountain

“So, ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

The Truth (1896)

Nature

“Nothing but truth is immortal.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: The Ghosts and Other Lectures

Truth

“What light is to the eyes, what love is to the heart, Liberty is to the soul of man. Without it, there come suffocation, degradation and death.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

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

Love , Death , Soul , Light

“I like Voltaire, because for half a century he was the intellectual emperor of Europe. I like him, because from his throne at the foot of the Alps he pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in Christendom.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

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

“Celibacy is the essence of vulgarity.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Rome, or Reason?, p. 61 http://www.archive.org/stream/thegreatcontrove00ingeuoft/thegreatcontrove00ingeuoft_djvu.txt

“I happened to be in the company of six or seven Baptist elders—how I ever got into such bad company, I don’t know,—and one of them asked what I thought about baptism. Well, I never thought much about it; did not know much about it; didn’t want to say anything, but they insisted upon it. I said, “Well, I’ll give you my opinion—with soap, baptism is a good thing.””

Robert G. Ingersoll

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

“The present is the necessary product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

What Is Religion? (1899) is Ingersoll's last public address, delivered before the American Free Religious association, Boston, June 2, 1899. Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Dresden Memorial Edition Volume IV, pages 477-508, edited by Cliff Walker. http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/ingwhatrel.htm
Variant: The present is the child, and the necessary child, of all the past, and the mother of all the future.

Past , Future

“Whether or not the soul is immortal is a fact in nature and cannot be changed by any book whatever. If I am immortal, I am. If am not, no book can render me so. It is no more wonderful that I should live again than that I do live.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

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

Books , Soul , Nature , Change

“This church, so “fruitful in all good things,” invented crimes that it might punish. This church tried men for a “suspicion of heresy”—imprisoned them for the vice of being suspected—stripped them of all they had on earth and allowed them to rot in dungeons, because they were guilty of the crime of having been suspected. This was a part of the Canon Law. It is too late to talk about the “invincible stability” of the Catholic Church.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

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

Men , Law , Parting

“We all know the beautiful hymn commencing with the cheerful line: "Hark from the tombs, a doleful sound." Nothing could have been more appropriate for children. It is well to put a coffin where it can be seen from the cradle. When a mother nurses her child, an open grave should be at her feet. This would tend to make the babe serious, reflective, religious and miserable.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Why I Am an Agnostic (1896)

Children , Beauty

“You cannot change the conclusion of the brain by torture; nor by social ostracism. But I will tell you what you can do by these, and what you have done. You can make hypocrites by the million. You can make a man say that he has changed his mind; but he remains of the same opinion still. Put fetters all over him; crush his feet in iron boots; stretch him to the last gasp upon the holy rack; burn him, if you please, but his ashes will be of the same opinion still.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child (1877)

Change

“Here is a representative before the constituency had been born. Before I am bound by a representative I want a chance to vote for or against him; and if I had been there, and known all the circumstances, I should have voted “No!””

Robert G. Ingersoll

And yet, I am held responsible.
Orthodoxy (1884)

Chance

“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.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

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

People , Way , Thinking

“It may be, however, sufficient to say, that wherever the church has had power it has been a crime for any man to speak his honest thought. No church has ever been willing that any opponent should give a transcript of his mind. Every church in power has appealed to brute force, to the sword, for the purpose of sustaining its creed. Not one has had the courage to occupy the open field. The church has not been satisfied with calling Infidels and unbelievers blasphemers. Each church has accused nearly every other church of being a blasphemer. Every pioneer has been branded as a criminal. The Catholics called Martin Luther a blasphemer, and Martin Luther called Copernicus a blasphemer. Pious ignorance always regards intelligence as a kind of blasphemy. Some of the greatest men of the world, some of the best, have been put to death for the crime of blasphemy, that is to say, for the crime of endeavoring to benefit their fellow-men.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

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

Death , Men , World , Intelligence

“Nothing could tempt me to do this man injustice, though I could hardly add to the injury he has done himself.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

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

“If, when Christ was on his way to Calvary, some brave soul had rescued him from the pious mob, he would not only have been damned for his pains, but would have rendered impossible the salvation of any human being. The Christian world has been trying for nearly two thousand years to explain the atonement, and every effort has ended in an admission that it cannot be understood, and a declaration that it must be believed. Has the promise and hope of forgiveness ever prevented the commission of a sin? Can men be made better by being taught that sin gives happiness here; that to live a virtuous life is to bear a cross; that men can repent between the last sin and the last breath; and that repentance washes every stain of the soul away?”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Some Reasons Why (1881)

Life , Men , Pain , World

“Sometimes I suspect that our own civilization is not altogether perfect. When I think of the penitentiaries crammed to suffocation, and of the many who ought to be in; of the want, the filth, the depravity of the great cities; of the starvation in the manufacturing centers of Great Britain, and, in fact, of all Europe; when I see women working like beasts of burden, and little children deprived, not simply of education, but of air, light and food, there is a suspicion in my mind that Christian civilization is not a complete and overwhelming success.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

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

Women , Children , Education , Food

“Blasphemy is the word that the majority hisses into the ear of the few.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

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

“The Declaration of Independence announces the sublime truth, that all power comes from the people. This was a denial, and the first denial of a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man to govern others.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Individuality http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/individuality.html (1873).
Context: The Declaration of Independence announces the sublime truth, that all power comes from the people. This was a denial, and the first denial of a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man to govern others. It was the first grand assertion of the dignity of the human race. It declared the governed to be the source of power, and in fact denied the authority of any and all gods. Through the ages of slavery — through the weary centuries of the lash and chain, God was the acknowledged ruler of the world. To enthrone man, was to dethrone God.

God , People , Truth

“Whenever an orthodox editor attacks an unbeliever, look out for kindness, charity and love.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

A Christmas Sermon (1890)

Love

“Men and women are not virtuous by law. Law itself does not of itself create virtue, nor is it the foundation or fountain of love. Law should protect virtue, and law should protect the wife, if she has kept her contract, and the man, if he has fulfilled his. But the death of love is the end of marriage. Love is natural. Back of all ceremony 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 G. Ingersoll

The Writings of Robert G. Ingersoll (1900), Dresden Edition, publishing house: C.P. Farrell, chapter: Is Divorce Wrong (1889), page 426 http://books.google.de/books?id=MOjuNv04TUcC&pg=PA426&lpg=PA426&dq=Love+is+natural.+Back+of+all+ceremony+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.&source=bl&ots=7Shzo7cSUF&sig=ZHs4Bs7Z_AvZF4UG-emVhGR2gTM&hl=de&sa=X&ei=6rP7UdGNI8iFtAbe64GIDw&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Love%20is%20natural.%20Back%20of%20all%20ceremony%20burns%20and%20will%20forever%20burn%20the%20sacred%20flame.%20There%20has%20been%20no%20time%20in%20the%20world's%20history%20when%20that%20torch%20was%20extinguished.%20In%20all%20ages%2C%20in%20all%20climes%2C%20among%20all%20people%2C%20there%20has%20been%20true%2C%20pure%2C%20and%20unselfish%20love.&f=false

Love , Death , Women , Men

“The theology taught by Milton was dear to the Puritan heart. It was accepted by New England, and it poisoned the souls and ruined the lives of thousands. The genius of Shakespeare could not make the theology of Milton poetic. In the literature of the world there is nothing, outside of the “sacred books,” more perfectly absurd.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Why I Am an Agnostic (1896)

Books , World , Soul , Literature

“The church insists that we must be “born again” and that all who are not the subjects of this second birth are heirs of everlasting fire. Would it not have been much better to have made another Adam and Eve? Would it not have been better to change Noah and his people, so that after that a second birth would not have been necessary? Why not purify the fountain of all human life? Why allow the earth to be peopled with depraved and monstrous beings, each one of whom must be re-made, re-formed, and born again?”

Robert G. Ingersoll

Orthodoxy (1884)

Life , People , Birth , Change

“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.”

Robert G. Ingersoll

The Great Infidels (1881)