“They will not change the words of the creed; they will simply give “new meanings and the highest criticism to-day is that which confesses and avoids. In other words, the churches will change as the people change. They will keep for sale that which can be sold. Already the old goods are being “marked down.””
"The Brooklyn Divines." Brooklyn Union (Brooklyn, NY), 1883.
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Robert G. Ingersoll 439
Union United States Army officer 1833–1899Related quotes

“As though adding the word democratic in front of a word changes what it means.”
Source: https://www.prageru.com/video/democratic-socialism-is-still-socialism/

Signs of Change (1888), How We Live And How We Might Live
Context: The word Revolution, which we Socialists are so often forced to use, has a terrible sound in most people's ears, even when we have explained to them that it does not necessarily mean a change accompanied by riot and all kinds of violence, and cannot mean a change made mechanically and in the teeth of opinion by a group of men who have somehow managed to seize on the executive power for the moment. Even when we explain that we use the word revolution in its etymological sense, and mean by it a change in the basis of society, people are scared at the idea of such a vast change, and beg that you will speak of reform and not revolution. As, however, we Socialists do not at all mean by our word revolution what these worthy people mean by their word reform, I can't help thinking that it would be a mistake to use it, whatever projects we might conceal beneath its harmless envelope. So we will stick to our word, which means a change of the basis of society; it may frighten people, but it will at least warn them that there is something to be frightened about, which will be no less dangerous for being ignored; and also it may encourage some people, and will mean to them at least not a fear, but a hope.

“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.”

“How strange that the world should change because of words, and words change because of the world”
Source: Birds Without Wings